The greatest movie ever!

From my favorite movies..

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

It took an enormous amount of patience to sit through all of THE GOLDEN BOWL without ever feeling any connection with the dull characters. UMA THURMAN looks out of place in a costume film and is too much of a modernist to do well in a Henry James tale. JEREMY NORTHAM has a distracting accent that never sounds like it belongs to an Italian prince. KATE BECKINSALE as the girl who is too devoted to her father is so bland she almost disappears, even when she has her more confrontational moments. And it's odd to see NICK NOLTE in such a passive role, quite a departure for him. As for poor JAMES FOX, he's given little more than a bit role. Only ANGELICA HUSTON seems to have a grasp of a role which she is able to give some color to.The story of relationships is slow moving, painfully slow and not the easiest to follow as we witness that the golden bowl is indeed cracked, in more ways than one and "has a flaw". So does the film--in fact, it has several and by the time the story has run its course we feel cheated by the ending which simply finishes with a thud before the end credits start.Sorry, the scenery and the costumes are lavish, opulent and breathtakingly gorgeous in true Merchant Ivory tradition, but the Henry James story remains a surface thing that never grips the emotion or permits the characters to do more than move about and recite their lines with precision but little emotional depth.Not recommended unless watching splendid sets and scenery is enough.

Merchant-Ivory-Jhabvala films are mostly pretentious, precious, coy, and overlong. Scenes, glances, stares, long shots, and dialogues seem to be designed for length=art. I appreciate some of MIP but overall find it artsy.James was a great novelist but most of his later works ponderous and captious to the extreme.James & MIP are much alike and combining MIP with James can be a disaster eg. The Bostonians.Golden Bowl was a pleasant surprise. Thurman, usually nicely understated, overacts; Northam, typically in control of his role, isn't; Nolte is out of time and place; Beckinsale, a fluffy TV actress, is clear in her character and does a nice job.It all works (except maybe Nolte).It's a bit modernized: James had his characters "making love" via a quick glance; Northam drives Thurman towards orgasm with his hand in her crotch.It's almost as if MIP decided to make a crisp and tough film version of James. Or perhaps they saw themselves in James and overreacted. In any case, it's a decent movie overall and mostly worth seeing.

Despite the fact that I'm normally not a fan of period movies, I've seen two in a row now. The first one was "The Remains of the Day", the second one this "The Golden Bowl. Much to my surprise I must say that I liked both, although there was a big difference in the two. While the first one was very compelling and sometimes close to perfection, I didn't always have that feeling with this movie.In the early 1900's Adam Verver, an American billionaire, lives with his daughter in London. When she is introduced to the Italian Prince Amerigo, it doesn't take long before they get married. But the prince has a secret. He has a relationship with Charlotte Stant, Maggie Verver's best friend. Because Maggie doesn't know that Amerigo and Charlotte know each other, she sees no harm in introducing her to her widowed father and therefor allowing her to become a member of the family once she marries him. Charlotte is very happy with this match of course, because all she wants is to be close to Prince Amerigo. All this leads to one big masquerade full of deception, lies and unhappiness which can't be revealed...Despite the fact that I'm normally not a fan of this kind of movies, I must say that this one was OK. Especially the acting made it all worth watching. Thanks to the famous, but also well-acting cast which includes people like Kate Beckinsale, Anjelica Huston, Nick Nolte and Uma Thurman, I was able to enjoy this movie. Does that mean that it is a perfect movie? No, not exactly. The story for instances sometimes lacks a bit in power, making it not always very interesting to keep watching this movie for more than two hours. But on the other hand I must also say that it all could have been a lot worse. The story was perhaps not exceptional, but it sure was decent enough.In the end I don't think this is a movie that will appeal to the average fan of period movies. First of all is the time period not exactly correct. I believe that those movies situated in the early 19th century are a lot more popular than one which is situated in the early 1900's. But since I'm not such an average fan and because I've always been interested in the time period 1900 - 1950, this was quite interesting for me. It's only too bad that the story wasn't a bit more exceptional. Now I give this movie a rating in between 7/10 and 7.5/10, mostly because of the fine performances.

A luscious Merchant-Ivory film, though far from being a satisfying one, the times and the setting are both depicted well, but the story is very dry. The characters are never really well introduced, and to begin with it is hard follow. Once one had figured out just what has happened though, the story has nothing left in its power to grip. Uma Thurman also feels a tad out of place, like she does not belong in the context of the film. However, there is not really much overall that one can definitely fault the film on. It is mostly just a very dry story, one which is lacking in depth and excitement, which is the downfall of the film.