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.

If this movie is what Henry James is all about, I have not missed a lot not reading him. A golden bowl (nick knack in a shop--which later by accident reveals adulterous affair) has a flaw in it that is hidden...the marriage of the billionaire's daughter (Kate Beckinsale) and the Italian prince (Amerigo/Jeremy Northam) also has a hidden flaw. There are lots of other symbols knives for instance followed by a skit of actors stabbing each other and also several replays of the 15th century murders of Amerigo's ancestor's faithless wife and her step son offering some historical foreboding of events.James was said to judge a novel based on how interesting it is...here this movie falls flat. It is a prettily filmed soap opera from 1903.I agree with another reviewer it is hard to feel sorry for these privileged cosseted people who run around all day worrying about who knew who before they were married at their stuffy lawn parties and collecting art. Nor do I view them or their lives as significant.Henry James is also kind of a preview to modern day PC stuff--couples married 40 years having a sex life(the older woman friend)...women's concerns everywhere and obvious symbolism to make you believe you have just watched something of intellectual significance.The filming is pretty. Nick Nolte is miscast and unattractive in this role as intellectual gentleman--he looks sour and mean. Jeremy Northam was unconvincing as an Italian and miscast as a man inspiring passionate interest from women.So, it is boring. What is so exciting about adultery no matter how the couples are arranged? A modern version of this would have featured incest and they would have returned on the Titanic so maybe I shouldn't complain. Using James own rating system it fails. Partly this material doesn't age well--a hundred years later the key elements of the plot are boring rather than mind bending and shocking as they were then.DO NOT RECOMMEND

Charlotte Slant, an penniless American socialite, left her country to settle in Europe. This way, perhaps, her reduced means would go further in the Europe of the last part of the XIX century. In Florence, she meets, and falls in love, with an impoverished Italian prince. They become lovers, but neither one has the money to live well in the society both loved. When Charlotte goes to London, her good friend Fanny Assingham, an American with a lot of social connections, has a plan to marry her to Adam Verver, the first American billionaire, whose own daughter, Maggie, happened to be Charlotte's friend.Amerigo had followed Charlotte to England, but he was seeing Maggie, a possible meal ticket, a way out for his money problems. One day, Charlotte and Amerigo visited an antique shop where they found a gorgeous vase decorated with gold. The owner tells them it is a perfect piece. The price though, kept it out of her budget, besides, she was not completely sure Maggie would like it. Amerigo's marriage to Maggie is a match made in heaven for Adam, who now can add a noble title to his future grandchildren.Maggie and Amerigo divided their time between the house in London and her father's splendid palace he rents in Leicestershire. Charlotte, now married to the older Adam, had not stopped loving Amerigo. Their passion is stronger, if anything. One week-end Charlotte and Amerigo go to a country estate where a celebration is happening. When they are to return to London, they decide to stay overnight at Gloucester, where they spend the night at an out of the way inn. Maggie is worried, but when they reappear, Amerigo explains how they wanted to see the magnificent cathedral. In doing so, he mentions something he has not the correct answer. Who is buried at the cathedral? Was it Richard II, or Edward II? Maggie, who obviously knows the answer is upset.Maggie, shopping at the antique shop is offered the golden bowl. The owner explains she can have it for less since he discovered a flaw in the crystal. When the merchant goes to deliver the piece, he notices the picture of Amerigo and Charlotte on a table. He mentions to Maggie this was the couple interested in buying the precious vase a few years ago. Maggie realizes the deception. Adam, noticing his daughter's distress, decides it is time for him to go back to America where he is building a museum to house all his European treasures. Charlotte, reluctantly, is made to go. In spite of her distaste for her native country, Charlotte will become a bigger socialite because of Adam's money, but in the process, she loses Amerigo.If there was anyone meant to bring Henry James' novel to the screen, it was James Ivory, a man that had made excellent adaptations of mostly English classic authors. The adaptation was entrusted to Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, an usual collaborator, who had done well transferring the original works into cinematic terms. Unfortunately, this venture did not pay off the same way that most of the other efforts did. Part of the blame must go into the casting of the four principal roles, and the almost static staging of the novel. Henry James' work presents some difficulty for the transfer to the screen.Uma Thurman is a ravishing creature. Her Charlotte is not exactly what one would have thought it could be. Complicating matters, there is no chemistry between her and Amerigo. Jeremy Northam's accent is not convincing for a noble Italian prince. Nick Nolte, who had worked with Mr. Ivory before, has a minor role. Kate Beckingsale, as Maggie is also not at her best. The only one that seems at ease is Anjelica Huston, whose Fanny is the best thing in the picture, but she is only a minor character.The film is gorgeously photographed in authentic settings. Tony Pierce-Roberts' camera captures those great places in all its splendor. The musical score is by Richard Robbins.

I found this movie to be plot less. You are led on to believe there is a twisted 'Love Square' going on. When really it is merely a story that could be figured out in a matter of minutes. A cheating husband, a daughter tragically attached to her father, and a best friend to betray her ( as it always your best friend that will sleep with your husband). The movies jumps with little to no detail. The dialogue lacked flow and seemed forced.***********Spoilers Ahead*********** I am quite the fan of Kate Beckinsale, and though her acting never faulted, I think it was a mistake to take the role. It made her out to be oblivious and dim-witted. To blind to see that her husband was cheating on her with her best friend, coincidently her fathers wife. Everyone around her was trying to protect her 'innocence' and yet she never acts out against it and instead remains loyal to those who kept it from her. Another mistake is that she is the main character. The story is really centered around Uma Thurman and Jeremy Northam. Their acting is believable, though I must say I found it hard to not think of Uma trying to kill bill while I watched her act hopelessly in love with a married man. The father in the story seemed oblivious but when he did appear to know he seemed to quickly forget it and go along with his plans to build a museum in American City.This movie was a waste of my time in all regards, not something to watch when you are not quite awake as you will fall asleep, not that is a problem as nothing really happens the entire middle hour and a half of the movie. So in conclusion if you are looking for relatively good acting this is an OK movie, but if you are looking for a story with decent dialogue go somewhere else or you will be very disappointed.