About.com Rating

By the time a special celebrity cameo popped up on screen almost half-way through, at least six people had left the preview screening of Winter's Tale I attended never to return.  They were the first batch of moviegoers who didn't stick it out for the entire film, but they weren't the last.  Perhaps no one warned them about the film's fantasy elements or how Winter's Tale depicts the battle between Heaven and Hell.

Or maybe the abrupt appearance of a big name star, completely overdoing it and most likely cast in the role because he's a friend of the writer/director and not because he was right for the part, was just the straw that broke the camel's back.  Whatever the reason, those who made their way to the exits before having to take in the full two-hour running time were the lucky ones.

The basic plot revolves around Peter Lake (Colin Farrell), set adrift as a baby to float ashore after his parents were denied entry to America.  As an adult, Peter is recruited into a ruthless gang led by Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe delivering an unintentionally comical performance as the film's villain). You can't quit Pearly's gang but Peter tries to, and for that transgression he's been marked as a dead man.

However, before Pearly's goons can kill him off, Peter mounts a nearby white horse, flies over a fence, and gets away. The horse (named 'Horse' by Peter) has magical powers which Peter is slow to accept, and when Peter tries to convince him it's time to flee the city, Horse stands his ground outside  the home of a wealthy newspaper magnate.

  Believing Horse wants him to pull off one last robbery before getting the heck out of Dodge, Peter enters the home only to discover the lovely Beverly (Jessica Brown Findlay from Downtown Abbey) has not left on vacation with the rest of her family.  Beverly's dying of consumption and will follow the family a few days later after they've set up a special bedroom to keep her cool because the fever heats her body to uncomfortable levels.   

Peter is immediately smitten with Beverly, and Beverly - who has never had a boyfriend in her young life - returns the affection.  But Pearly's still hunting Peter down and Beverly's on the verge of death, leaving these lovebirds very little time to enjoy each other's company.  Will Peter be able to save his new love from dying of consumption? Can love conquer all and can Peter stay out of Pearly's grasp? If you can stick around for the final act, you'll discover the answers to these and other questions. However, you'll never discover what that big-name actor referred to above is doing in this movie.

The Bottom Line:

Winter's Tale is based on the bestselling book by Mark Halpern and marks the directorial debut of Oscar-winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman.  Goldsman's worked with some of the best directors in Hollywood, but with Winter's Tale it's obvious he hasn't developed a style of his own. The pacing's sluggish and the story doesn't flow, and, as previously mentioned, there's an ill-advised cameo that's incredibly jarring and distracting. In fact, it's like a brick wall gets thrown up and the film's forward narrative crashes into it never to recover. You can't unsee it and you can't help but turn to whoever you're sitting next to to point out, "That's such-and-such," and to ask, "What's he doing in this film?"

But then none of the actors in this production make it out unscathed. Colin Farrell is charming enough to be able to act around hair dangling in his eyes as he swoons over the red-headed beauty who is the love of his life. Russell Crowe and his A Beautiful Mind co-star Jennifer Connelly both play supporting roles in this sappy romantic tale, and neither stands out in positive ways for their performances. Goldsman wrote the A Beautiful Mind screenplay, which is probably what attracted Crowe and Connelly to the film. But Winter's Tale is no A Beautiful Mind.  

Winter's Tale is gorgeously shot and the scenery's absolutely stunning, but the physical beauty on screen is lost in a mushy love story that simply doesn't work.  It's a fantasy so it's not necessary to apply logic to everything that unfolds in Winter's Tale, but it's the little things that should make sense that don't.  A prime example is Peter Lake showing up 100 years after he was supposedly killed and somehow able to not only survive in New York without any idea who he is and without any money, but thrive. He finds a place to live and doesn't seem to be going hungry, and there's no explanation as to how he's getting by or why he so quickly adapts to all of the modern inventions, buildings, etc.  This scene and others equally as illogical wouldn't matter if they were just a small part of an overall story that was so fantastical and entertaining, so magical and charming that the parts that don't add up can be overlooked. Unfortunately, that's not the case with Goldsman's adaptation.

I've never read Mark Helprin's book, and reading the source material should never be a prerequisite for enjoying a film.  Books and the movies based on them are two distinct creations, and an audience shouldn't be expected to know the parts that are left out of the film in order to engage in what's on screen. But based on the manner in which Winter's Tale unfolds on screen, it's obvious there's a lot missing from the page that didn't make the transition to the feature film.   

Winter's Tale leaps between the late 1800s, the early 1900s, and modern day as it hopscotches its way through a story of love found, love lost, Heaven, Hell, miracles, and flying white horses.  Unfortunately, the magic necessary to pull off a story of this ilk just isn't there in Winter's Tale.

GRADE: D

Winter's Tale was directed by Akiva Goldsman and is rated PG-13  for violence and some sensuality.

Theatrical Release: February 14, 2014