Love in the Time Of Cholera

Set in Colombia, the film opens with a man falling to his death after trying to retrieve a parrot from a tree. In the next scene, an old man is laying in bed with a girl over fifty years his junior (nice work if you can get it). The ringing of the church bells, signifying a funeral, alerts him and strangely he casts aside the young girl, impressive chest and all. The first of many chests up for comparison tonight.

The old man is Florentino Ariza and straight after the funeral, he approaches the widow Fermina Daza, ignoring her distress at her husband's death and declares his everlasting love for her. Enraged by the gall of the man, she understandably tells him where to get off. Apparently, he made the same vow many years before and so the film takes us back fifty years in time and tells us his story.

When they were young, Florentino was a mere telegraph boy, who was besotted with Fermina from the first time he saw her. He is persistent, constantly pursuing her, writing her letters and they have a short romance. Her father tries to keep them apart and one day she rejects him totally. Then when she goes down with suspected Cholera a doctor is called. The doctor is Juvenal Urbino, the man who falls out of the tree. He immediately gets one up on Florentino when he cunningly persuades her to get her chest out in the interests of a very thorough examination. Ha, writing letters doesn't get you that far does it! He deduces it isn’t Cholera and so she lives. Her father is so gratified that he asks the doctor what he can do to repay him. I expected Dr Urbino, obviously impressed with what she’d shown him, to demand his Daughter there and then but he is more subtle, with the help of her father he gradually wins her over, and marries her.

Florentino (now played by Javier Bardem and looking like No Country For Old Men meets Bleak House) is distraught but remains obsessed with her. He vows he will stay a virgin until they are together again.



His boss takes him to the whorehouse to take his mind off things but he's not interested. His chastity though, only lasts until he bizarrely gets jumped by a mystery woman on a boat trip. Some you win, some you lose, I guess.

With his vow in tatters perhaps it's time to move on, eh Florentino? They say the best way to get over heartache is to channel your energies into something new and he certainly does that. He drowns his sorrows in the arms and amongst other limbs of many women, which adds a whole new dimension to being ‘on the rebound’.

He proceeds to have his way with anything that moves, if it's female, it doesn't matter if she's available or not. In fact after seducing one particular married woman, he scrawled a declaration of his ownership on her body and when she forgot to wash if off before she cuddled up with her husband that night, her enraged husband killed her. Slight over reaction perhaps but I imagine he was a tad pissed off.

He also keeps notes and records each of his conquests in detail, probably giving marks out of ten for each one. Just think what he could have done had they had Excel in them days. He could have done graphs and all sorts of fancy things.

If all this is meant to help him get over the pain of losing Fermina, it doesn't work. Apparently absence really does seem to make the heart grow fonder in his case, even if other parts of him have long since got over it and moved on to pastures new, and then moved on again... and again... By the time her husband dies and she is up for grabs again, 51 years, 9 months and 4 days have passed and Florentino is in the arms of his 622nd conquest when the funeral bells ring. Although it's a bit unbelievable that an old man can still pull so many much young women but I suppose it happens, just not to most of us.



In the end they do get together and he finally gets to bed the woman he was saving himself for. He assures her that he's 'remained a virgin' for her. He’s a card. Not that she believes him.

The film was a brave attempt to turn what I imagine is a complex book into a film and it's far from perfect but I enjoyed it. Although you didn't really get any emotional attachment with the main characters but perhaps that was the idea.

The biggest let down was by the make up department. The characters had to age by 50 years and it's done badly. Fermina at 70 just looked like a 30 year old who'd had too many vodka's, that is until she unveiled her chest for him, which is by now around her knees. It wasn't there when she showed it Dr Urbino all those years ago. I hate to think how they achieved that effect, perhaps they got a stunt double in. Oddly, only one actress is chosen to play Fermina throughout her life while two actors share the role of Florentino. Perhaps they went over budget.

The film ends with them on a river cruise and the Captain of the ship raising the flag of cholera, so that they won't have to call at any ports.

Suppose it's not a bad gig, working your way through 622 women and still getting the girl of your dreams.

Lars And The Real Girl

The film is set in a small snowy, presumably Canadian, town and stars a chap called Lars who is a bit of an introvert. Despite having a job in an office, he lives mainly the life of a recluse in the modified garage of his deceased parents' home where his brother Gus and his pregnant wife, Karin live. They both want Lars to be more sociable and keep trying to get him to come to dinner with them.

Lars though, struggles with social interaction and is troubled by his past, in particular the loss of his parents. Lars doesn't want to be involved with people and is even too frightened to act upon the advances of a female work colleague.

Then suddenly to the surprise of Gus and Karin he announces that he has a girlfriend. She's an orphaned registered nurse come missionary from Brazil or something like that. She's called Bianca and she's confined to a wheelchair. They are delighted until they found out that Bianca is a plastic sex doll, an anatomically correct one at that.

From this point onwards it would have been very easy to travel down the tired old slapstick comedy path but the film doesn't. In fact to our surprise the film is not a comedy at all, there is subtle humour in it but the film doesn't try to be funny. In fact at times it becomes inappropriate to even think of laughing.

Sex with the doll isn't on the cards either, in fact Lars asks his brother if Bianca can sleep in their spare room until they get to know each other better.



Instead of being funny the film becomes thought-provoking and moving. Gus and Karin take Lars to the local psychologist who suggests that they go along with his delusion until Lars himself deals with whatever is causing it. Then the film gets even more surreal as the whole town play along and Lars's new girlfriend gets taken to parties, to church, gets a job, and even gets elected to the school board. Through all this Lars grows in confidence as if this was his way of developing social skills. As his self-belief grows Bianca loses her appeal to him. Through all this, the girl at work, still despite the fact that Lars has been going out with a sex toy in preference to her, is still interested in him. So when Bianca goes on a girl's night, Lars is a little put out and accepts a date with her.

After their night out bowling with some other friends, Lars comes home to discover that Bianca is dying. Bizarrely an ambulance arrives to transport her to hospital. It gets even freakier after she dies because a funeral is held for her.

Bianca dies because her job is done, the local community have helped Lars's heal his psychological problems, and through Bianca he has discovered how to deal with human situations.



It's a highly original film that at times is too weird for words. Despite that, or perhaps because of that, it's excellent with outstanding acting performances all round. It did plod a bit in the middle and Bianca took an age to 'die' but it was still a great film.

If L was reviewing it she would dwell more on the psychological side of it, but I feel it's more of a film about someone failing to develop their social skills. There is even a dig about one of the office workers being unable to afford his own doll because he spent the money on an Xbox. Sure the film is far fetched but a lot of people have imaginary friends and 'friendships' with dolls and teddy bears when they are younger. This film just takes this all to the extremes. Lars just took a little longer growing up but he got there in the end.