So yeah, this movie was slow and tedious, and like the world, as they say, it ends not with a bang, but with a whimper. But I think that might've been the point. Bravo./Snore.I don't read much, but I do tend to like these literary costume jobs sometimes, because I find the way people carried themselves and treated each other back in the day to be pretty interesting, most of the time in a "what the hell were they thinking?" sorta way. Like "Thank God we've gotten past that sorta ridiculous B.S." I guess like the characters were masochists to be that way, and I guess I'm a bit of a cinematic masochist to watch them. Of course it can vary from flick to flick, but a lot of these things, both good and bad, seem to me to be about the "exquisite withholding." Scorsese's "Age of Innocence" is the best example I can think of right now.The things that most people posting here had problems with about this movie, I think is its whole reason for being. The movie revolves around these four people, whom i think were casted and acted PERFECTLY, exactly what they were supposed to be...Jeremy Northam's Italian dude is indeed a wet noodle. He thinks he's all suave and debonair, the lady-killer, the lover, and really he's just a cheesy boob with the spine and self-knowledge of an amoeba. He's dull, weak, and boring, but of course both of the story's women find him just FASCINATING! Why? Because of course oftentimes women are total IDIOTS about the men "in their lives", who they fill like empty vessels with their silly-ass romantic notions without ever actually stopping to take a good look at for who they really are. (If you're reading this and thinking I'm a chauvinistic unromantic pig, you may be right, but that does not mean I'm wrong.) So of course both women are head over heels for this clown. ("He's got AN ACCENT! ...and A BEARD! ... and he's A PRINCE! Oh my god, gimme some o' THAT!")Uma Thurman plays her character like Joan Crawford or Betty Davis, and it rings true. Why, she's an American "adventuress", dammit, and if she wants it all, well it's 'cuz she DESERVES it! Her character is such a conniving but bland and simple see-through bitch (played awesomely by Thurman) that I love how things go for her. She loses her cheesy lasagna lover and gets stuck with the stiff stuck-up asinine old idiot played by Nick Nolte. She gets WHAT SHE DESERVES.Kate Beckinsale is great as the porcelain doll daddy's girl who never had to lift a finger (or work a brain-cell) in her entire life. Of COURSE she's gonna go for the Italian Meatball, but be too pixie-brained, weak-willed and slathered in denial to see that he and her "friend" are laying pipe together in every old building in England. And of course she ends up with the "Prince", who, even though he's with her, will never get over what a slime-ball he is, or ever fully "be hers". She gets exactly WHAT SHE DESERVES. And bless his feeble-minded greasy heart, SO DOES HE.Lastly, Nolte's character, "the first American Billionaire" we're informed, is just an acquisitions man from the get-go, piling up statues and paintings and antiquities (and a daughter and then a wife) just so he can put them in a museum (tomb) in "American City" and say "Hey, Look what I got! Come and look at all this Sh*t that you could never afford!" He tells himself and others that he's doing it to "give back" something to the people, but he doesn't believe it himself for a minute, and neither does anybody else. And in the end, he takes his cold statue of a stupid venal wife, and his big empty pile of sh*t and goes back to install himself in his museum (tomb) along with them. He gets, in the end, exactly WHAT HE DESERVES.As do we, the blessed/cursed audience. Awesome movie, Dude. Roll Credits.p.s.I Do Wish that some ballsy filmmakers would, just once, owning the rights to some old literary masterpiece like this, would do a straight-up lavish adaptation like this one, and then change the ending so that, say, Nick Nolte's character, fed-up and despondent and enraged, takes an old battle-ax off one the grand walls and chops the other three main characters to pieces, then collapses mumbling onto the gore-filled carpet, camera slow-pushes in on his blood- spattered face. Roll Credits. Now That would be Something.

The film is very effective in conveying the spirit of the novel. By the end you will have that bittersweet taste in your mind, as it usually happens with Henry James stories... Not a single character can say that their heart is completely content. Once again, as in other Merchant Ivory productions, the cinematography and art direction is impeccable. Also, the costume design is both classic and risky (Uma Thurman at the ball is exotic and sensual). Now, the main flaw in terms of editing is pacing. While this type of narrative calls out for a slower pace, at times it just didn't feel right. It is like different hands took over parts of the movie.As for acting, it is quite good in general. Kate Beckinsale starts out very stiff, but warms up throughout the story. As for handsome Jeremy Northam, his Italian accent seemed contrived and was a bit distracting.

"The Golden Bowl" felt more like recent Edith Wharton adaptations like "Age of Innocence" and "House of Mirth" than its Henry James provenance, because the focus is more on the social criticism of a society that forces the impecunious upper class into marriage with pecunious upstarts than the individual faults of people this hypocritical society produces.But maybe my mind wandered as this was a bit over-long as I seemed to have missed some crucial epiphany when characters changed their relationships where they find true love a manipulable characteristic -- with the audience responding with sharp intakes of breath.I was surprised how good Uma Thurman was in a costume drama as I had thought of her only as a modernist, while I thought Nick Nolte far too subdued to be a robber baron.The costumes and settings were gorgeous.The audience was typical Merchant/Ivory fans -- the woman on my right chastised me during the opening credits for eating my popcorn too loudly, while the guy on my left was snoring almost as soon as the movie started.(originally written 5/13/2001)

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.