noralee
"Triumph of Love" is proof that not every Comédie-Française author who uses cross-dressing disguised courtship like Shakespeare is worth seeing. Or maybe something was lost in the translation of this adaptation of Marivaux, a Commedia Dell Arte-inspired playwright of whom Brittannica says: "His nuanced feeling and clever wordplay became known as marivaudage." While Mira Sorvino has fun dangling three mixed-up romances, her pants role wasn't even up to Cherubino in "Marriage of Figaro."The herky-jerky editing is annoying and just seems to indicate that a lot of takes were needed for each long speech.Best was Fiona Shaw as the fooled spinster, as well as the costumes.The glimpses of audience we see and the closing curtain call to wink that this is all artifice doesn't really help.(originally written 5/29/2002)
cht108
the first 20 minutes, i too was skeptical but the film does blossom. don't be scared off by negative reviews; you have 108 minutes to spare. fiona shaw and ben kingsley both falling hard for mira is enough for anyone! hilarious and lovely.
tedg
Spoilers herein.Set physically in a well-manicured garden, managed by an obsessive gardener. Set philosophically in a similarly ordered mind-space, tended by two (co-equal) minds. Set dramatically in a narrative world formed by three cooperative directors (the original dramatist, the screen adapter, the filmer). Of these three, two of the affairs are false, and one is tentative. So we have the contemporary play audience flashed; we have the cinematic relationship similarly stuttered; we have the players playing actors playing roles (and one of these playing three roles to mirror the dramatist, adapter and filmer).`Love's Labor's Lost/Twelfth Night' meets `Rosencrantz and Guildenstern' meets `Draughtsman's Contract.'I love the idea, and appreciate the energy of the players and the apt set: that carried me over the flaws. But these flaws are significant: the excessive self-reference kills the rhythm of internal humor, the acting about acting seems downright silly in the many places where the enveloping direction was weak. The self-conscious editing was overly explicit, and could have easily been done precisely the same with bleeds instead of cuts with greater effect and no jarring.In the case of Peploe, the intelligence outstrips the skill -- in the case of the players, it is the other way around. I think a better strategy would be to try different philosophies of acting rather all from the same tradition as we have here. A more fluid camera could have helped as well. As it stands, we have something worth watching with the potential to have been great. But it abdicated.The director's credit at the beginning was one for the books. Perfect. It had the words stuck to the carriage wherein the characters are dressing as actors.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 4: Worth watching.
sidpink
In college I studied Marivaux -- whose play this movie is based on -- so I have an understanding of the movie's context and characters. Given that, I found Triumph of Love to be rather enjoyable. But I don't recommend it for everyone. If you like Shakespeare in film or other cinematic adaptations of theater, you might well like this one. Mira Sorvino is, of course, lovely in the starring role(s).
AD
