Here's a genre that's perhaps the hardest to sustain a semblance of originality. It's the serious romance. There isn't much variability in the story. Boy meets girl. They don't like each other. Over time they fall in love. Then one of them dies. Maybe both of them. Either way since there are no laughs its hard to end one of these on an upbeat. Its quite necessary for someone to die.
It goes without saying that its hard for these movies to be instant classics. But here we have one that is somewhat complete. There's an exotic location, good performances by Naomi Watts and Edward Norton, both of which are convincingly British. There is a exquisite sleepy score that winds itself in and out of the movie to good effect.
There just isn't any real conflict in this movie. It would be fine to fall asleep too. One sort of waits for these two people to fall in love. Most of the movie is spent in gloomy discomfiture. The charachters have no joy. Then there is that one scene. And then the man dies a noble death and she's there nursing him. How sweet. But I would have liked a love story that had moments other than hardship and scorn in it. Maybe I'm asking too much of the characters. The man is proud and stiff and completely wrapped up in his work. The woman is always bored out of her mind. Neither are very appealing. It's just so evident why they felt disinclined to like each other for so long. But to the actors credit, they have imbued in their characters good hearts and souls and I learned to like them besides they're obvious faults. Because of that the movie was watchable.
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