Writer-director Roland Joffe recreates two entirely different and breathtaking worlds: an underwater world with a ship-wreck and the British Raj. Yet despite the elegant cinematography, "The Lovers" was a terrible bore. The problem with this movie is not that the plot amounts to a preposterous love story, with the moral being that uniting two rings together will reunite two lovers. Rather, the chemistry between Jay Fennel (Josh Hartnett) and Laura Fennel (Tamsin Egerton) and James Stewart (Josh Hartnett) and Tulaia Naik (Bipasha Basu) was not believable at any level. As a result, I could not get involved in the lives of any of the film's characters. Roland Joffe has made great films in the past, such as "The Killing Fields" (1984), but he has lost his way as a filmmaker since then. "The Lovers" sadly exemplifies the continued decline of this once greater director. Aside from the absence of compelling human stories, Joffe makes a number of other mistakes. There are intricate subplots about Indian princely rivalries and the British East India Company's political intrigues without any explanation as to why they are important to this movie. Instead, these subplots become loose ends, which proves that Joffe and the film editors are unable to organize the film's subject matter into a coherent and involving story. This movie also has more than a few action sequences, but they fail to generate any excitement or suspense because the characters who were in danger did not inspire much sympathy. The same holds true for many of the movie's smaller details, including Dolly's whisky drinking which seems strangely out of place. Apparently, there were significant delays over this movie's release because of editing difficulties. Yet having watching the final product, I think "The Lovers" is one of those movies that should not be released at all.

This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I've seen thousands of movies and some really, really bad ones. However, I really don't think I've seen one this bad on so many levels. Hell I like some bad movies if they provide some kind of entertainment along the way. This one just lacks any kind of entertainment in any kind of shape or form. I won't get into the acting or photography - that's apparent. Neve Campbell was originally cast to play Laura Fennel but dropped out due to pregnancy. I'll bet she is saying to herself now, "THANK GOD I got pregnant!" I mean I am a man and right now I'd rather be pregnant that watching this movie...

Sadly, all the tragedy and drama in this 2015 movie did not really manage to escape the screen and really make me feel involved. "The Lovers" is Roland Joffé's newest work and I have to say I really enjoyed his "Killing Fields" and you may also have heard of or seen his film "The Mission". It's his first film in 4 years, but he turns 70 this year, so no surprise he's a bit on the slow side now, especially as he also wrote the script for "The Lovers" and it is only the third time in his long career that he has done so.The central character is played by Josh Hartnett, once a big rising star, but by now disappeared a bit. Here he returns to the big screen and I saw he is also currently playing in the successful television series "Penny Dreadful". I've never been too big on him in the past, but here he is okay and his performance is certainly not one of the major flaws of this movie. Tamsin Egerton is one of Britain's rising stars, but this film will probably not propel her career any higher right now. It's basically a film about the clash of two worlds: on the one side we have marine scientists today and on the other we have ancient India. The cinematography and costumes are fine, but story-wise I never felt a really well-done significant connection between these two at any point during these 110 minutes. That's why I cannot recommend this film. If you are interested in the topic, I suggest taking a look at Ben Kingsley's "The Physician" from 2013. It's Persia ad not India, but I thought this was very well done.

An absolute waste of time. The storyline made no sense, the characters were very weak, and I didn't see the "love", for a movie entitled "The Lovers". The story could have played out better; there should have been an ending to the 1770's relationship, and how the ring got in the ocean…and not to mention how the rings could have brought him back to life. Don't get me started on that 300 year old witch or ghost that had the second ring. The premise behind the rings should have had a different outcome whereas the soul of a present day living Tulaja should be his soul mate, not some dumb treasure chaser that acted like Gollum from Lord of the rings. I'm no playwright but this should never have been produced, are we that hard up for a good script that just about anything can get green-lighted. I am a fan of Josh's...or rather I was. He's been away for quite a while; he should have picked a better project for his second coming. I'll give him a second chance only because of his prior work. If the next one sucks too he'll hear it from me. Next time IFC Films wants to throw away 35 million dollars I'll play catch with them.