I'm currently going through something of a Neil Jordan phase. The original novel by Graham Greene is one of my favourite novels so naturally I jumped at this film.
Whilst I loved elements of it, (Michael Nyman's score in particular is fantastic) I actually found the film to be oddly over mannered. The original Greene novel is at times furious and tempestous, and largely built around the existential guilt surrounding Bendrix and his seething hatred of god. It's an explicitly religious work and I assumed Jordan would heighten, or at least play to, that tone. Instead the film plays out like a rather languid Merchant and Ivory picture. There are a few flashes of the energy and verve of Greene's writing, Fiennes petulant performance is fantastic, but it feels so oddly heartless and soulless. It's not that the film doesn't try, it looks gorgeous and the principle cast are all amazing, it's just that it feels bizarrely safe for a Neil Jordan film.
I think I may have too much baggage, but it feels like the film is trying to cash in on the English Patient as a model more than anything else. With the flashbacks and multiple perspectives and fleeting glimpses of unresolved happiness and it just makes the film feel oddly toothless.
