Some Thoughts On "Winter's Tale"

Oh, dear.

I know in my right mind that I shouldn't be trying to rationalize my feelings on this film so quickly after watching it but I have so many thoughts (the vast majority of them bad) that I really need to just embrace every silly, silly element and let it go so the healing process can begin.

As I have said in a previous edition of "Some Thoughts", I mostly want to talk at length about movies that I highly anticipate for some reason and, as a result of said longing, end up dissecting them in a way that produces large blocks of rambling text. And as with Les Miserables and Much Ado About Nothing, I have some back-story to explain why I wanted to see this film.

It all started with me IMDb stalking Jessica Brown Findley. Yes, I wish it had started differently and more profoundly but nope, I've chosen to wear my truth hat today. Let's just say I had a lot of feelings regarding Lady Sybil's death on Downton Abbey (she was my favorite character and I was particularly invested in her and Tom's relationship) and I wanted to see what leaving one of the most internationally popular shows in order to pursue a film career would bring her. I, unlike some, didn't get mad at her for leaving even though it did cause me to become less interested in the show and sob violently during her last episode. I probably would have done the same thing if I was wearing her shoes. She was in a really good position in terms of her recognition as a rising star and yet, she was playing a character who was not indispensable to the show (hence why I predict Dan Stevens might not do as well post-Downton as she has).

So anyway, I saw that she was going to be in Winter's Tale and I read a little synopsis of the book and immediately knew I had to read it. Anyone who has seen my book collection knows that there are two themes among the novels I read that pop up a lot: 1.) magical realism and 2.) taking place during a World War and often involving a love story that is intriguing but mostly meant to support some grander theme. Not to mention it has a bunch of characters with interweaving stories, another trope in a lot of my favorite novels, and it has a lot of extravagant language about the night sky and the beauty of winter. Extravagant language? Victor Hugo is one of my favorite authors. Stars? I literally have star prints all over my bedroom. Winter? I'm pretty much Lorelei Gilmore when it comes to the first snow of the season.

As luck would have it, I found a mass market edition of the book at my favorite used book store for a dollar. And it was awesome. There were a few parts that I thought didn't connect quite right, the rules of the universe could have been fleshed out more, and the ending was kind of incomprehensible but the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. I loved the language, the characters, the themes, the humor, and the weirdness that felt strangely natural.

And within twenty pages, I knew the movie was going to suck.

There was just too much in the novel to make a two hour film of it and when I finished reading I looked up the cast list and realized, without any real surprise, that over half the characters were missing from the movie. Then came the poor reviews and snippets of comments that were incomprehensible to me even having read the book, for example "Will Smith plays the Devil," and that made me not only think that it will definitely suck but that it might be outright offensive to have it share the name of the novel.

And, yes. Yes, I was right.

So because pretty much everything was bad by no hyperbole, instead of nitpicking how wrong everything was because that would take me forever and be ultimately pointless, I have decided to talk about how an adaption of Winter's Tale could/should have gone by means of comparison.

Plot:
This should have been a miniseries. Even as a miniseries it would have probably taken about 20 hour-long episodes but at least the medium would be more forgiving to the massive amounts of content the book possesses. All you need to do is follow the book exactly however I would recommend two things:
1.) Rearrange the order of events of the novel somewhat. The movie actually started with Peter Lake's parents and I think this was one of the few good choices made. Also, in this theoretical series, reintroducing Peter very briefly sometime in Book Two would probably do a lot for continuity. There are other examples where rearranging scenes would be helpful but far too many to list here.
2.) Add more dialogue. The book is fairly scant on dialogue because it's heavy on internal monologue but this might not play as well on screen (and is pretty much proven by the 2014 film where there is an ongoing monologue on the themes throughout the movie). Also there are a lot of bits in the book where it is written that characters talk but the novel only mentions the topics. A good screenwriter could expand this.

It also wouldn't be bad to expand the 1910s set portion so that it's a bit more 50/50 or at least 40/60 to the modern set part. The movie did do the 50/50 thing except that the second half was boring and something you couldn't bother to get invested in. This might be because the first half was mostly the plot of Book One and the second half was barely even the book; it was thrown together elements from the book to try to create repeated themes and a maximum amount of emotion. I will not get into said desperate attempts at tying ideas together or the random inclusion of Satan. I will not. Because I will throw things.


Characters/Casting:
Have all the characters from the book present and recast pretty much everyone in this movie.

Jessica Brown Findley can stay as Beverly Penn and I really don't think I'm saying this because I saw her as Beverly while I was reading the book. I actually tried really hard not to see her in the role when I read but she kept taking over. She really embodies Beverly well and it's very believable on her in a way I don't think many actresses could pull off. J. Finds has that ethereal perfectness to her that only works on some people. If Amy Acker were in her early twenties, she could have done it. My one weird gripe was that she had red hair and this is only my grip because in the movie they made it such a plot thing when Beverly in the book has blonde hair and her hair wasn't even particularly red anyway. It was the shade of red you get when you try to dye dark hair without doing too much damage. Also, teach her how to do an American accent.

Jennifer Connolly can also stay as Virginia Gamely. I was actually profoundly sad by how small her role in the film ended up being. Virginia in the book is so gutsy and peculiar and has so much to do and I would have liked to see her actually get to do something other than crying about her child.

Pearly Soames and Issac Penn must be recast. Russell Crowe is no longer a believable actor and not just because of the poor way the movie character was written. William Hurt has been phoning in roles since he won an Oscar. Why is he still in things? Pearly needs to be menacing even in his moments of utter color gravity and Issac Penn should be more of a quiet eccentric.
True story: When I first read the cast list I thought it said John Hurt would be Issac and I thought that might be kind of great. Oh, was I disappointed to find I had the wrong Hurt.

As for Colin Farrell as Peter Lake, it wasn't the worst thing ever but I kept wanting more from it. I kind of didn't believe his love for Beverly and his presence was just overall bland. Maybe with a better script (and a better haircut; jeez, was that distracting) he could have really pulled it off but he just didn't. Unfortunately, there appears to be a shortage of Irish actors in their 30s in Hollywood and I am terrible at fan-casting so I'm not the person to ask who should replace him. Unfortunately, the only actor I can think of who would meet this basic criteria and actually be strong and convincing in the role is Allen Leech but obviously that can't happen because:
1.) It would be hard to separate his and J. Finds roles from their roles on Downton Abbey. Although, here's the advantage: Peter Lake and Beverly would definitely have chemistry because we've seen these two actors together before. I mean, Joss Whedon cast Alexis Denisof and Amy Acker as star-crossed lovers twice too, although ten years passed in between those two roles.
2.) He's not actually old enough if you are following the book. What's kind of jarring about Peter and Beverly is the age difference and while they (thankfully) changed her age from 18 to 21 in the film, Peter Lake is implied to be in his mid-thirties so that there is a clear gap between them. Of course, I would argue that eliminating this gap would be more beneficial than detrimental to the story, but so it goes.

As for the all the Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Films: Hardesty, Jackson Mead, Wootfowl, Asbury, Christiana, Harry Penn, Praeger de Pinto, Craig, Virginia's mom, Jessica Penn . . . someone else fan cast this. Please.


Theme:
Again, to succeed just follow the book. The movie was so hellbent on thrusting in theme and motif when the book just kind of gave you a little joy if you found a connection before moving on to the next thing. It's especially weird that the movie even made the slightest attempt at pulling in the justice theme with the name of the toy boat when the movie was clearly not trying to write a love story to New York so much as it was writing a love story to, well, the power of love? Maybe? I mean, love is a theme in the book too but a lot of the book is just about New York as a microcosm of humanity. It's actually kind of hilarious that the British movie title is A New York Winter's Tale when the setting is so unimportant to the film. At least the title serves to further separate it from the source material.

If the movie just wanted to tell Peter Lake's story, it could have. It certainly tried to. There was enough time that you could have made this movie Peter Lake's story specifically and made a movie that is not a Winter's Tale but is still a good movie in its own right. But they didn't. They got hung up on giving Pearly a ridiculous background, messing entirely with the second half, and covering everything in cheese.

But you know what actually might be the worst thing?


Tone/Music:
I have said before that one of the most alienating things I can see in a movie is a sob scene that is not earned. Many Hollywood blockbusters try so hard for that cheap cry from the audience that if you have any semblance of how feelings work, you find yourself all too aware of the fact that you are watching a movie and that nothing is real. This movie is mostly just superfluous attempts at manipulating the audience to feel something. There's so much cheesy dialogue and strange reworkings of the plot for maximum emotional response (see: cancer child).

This is especially sad when you reflect on the fact that the novel was actually really funny and that when many people talk about the novel, they want to mention the parts that made them laugh. I remember the scene when Beverly and Peter have sex to be funny and sweet in the book but when I watched the movie I was laughing hysterically at how overly dramatic it was. The ultimate goal should have been to make something that balanced funny with dramatic and epic with thought-provoking.

And you know what I can blame even more specifically for this failure? The music. It was like every bit of music was pulled from a catalog where the intended feeling was the name of the piece. "Deep Sorrow". "Nerve Racking". "D'awwww".

Solution for my theoretical miniseries: Less music. If there's going to be music it should be more minimalist. And there definitely could have been more era-appropriate music.


Effects:
Quite simply, there should only be as many as absolutely needed. The effects should be as natural and unobtrusive as possible.


So did I like anything? . . . The costumes. I'm a sucker for 1910s fashion so I especially like Beverly's dress, which you can see the right, and the one she wears right after when she's walking barefoot in the snow. I also like Beverly's star-gazing tent which I now aspire to construct one day. And I did like the designs of the houses in the film, I'll admit. And . . . That's it. I liked visuals. There were some nice shots throughout the film that I enjoyed in a stationary kind of way. And that's what it really all comes down to, isn't it? This movie was beauty without any substance.

And now I'm ready for the snow to melt.