An 18th century princess(Miss M.Sorvino) wants to restore the rightful heir to the throne of her country.He is incommunicado,living with a famous philosopher and his sister deep in the countryside.She decides the only way to get close to him is to seduce the philosopher,his sister and the prince himself in no particular order.Miss Sorvino has all the knowing innocence required of a Comedy Francaise heroine.Of course she is not in the least believable,but that's the whole point."The Triumph of love" is,in its entirety,an exercise in deception.But it is not a deception that is meant to fool anybody but the play's characters. The beauty of the film as an entity is quite overwhelming.The colour is exquisitely rendered,the lush grounds of the philosopher's house are as vividly verdant as a Brazilian rain forest. Each shot is carefully composed to show off the performers to their best advantage. None of the performances is particularly subtle,nor are they meant to be.This is not serious drama,nor serious anything else.We are seeing a filmed play,a comedy of the sort that was once popular all over Europe,Miss Peploe could not have made that much clearer short of putting the camera crew in the action. Miss Fiona Shaw is absolutely outstanding as the philosopher's sister.

I just wanted to put something on here that was a little more positive than what Matt McGuire wrote. If I had seen this before I'd seen some of the movies based on Shakespeare, I might have felt that the dialogue was weird and the story contrived. However, having seen filmed plays like Twelfth Night and read a few early modern plays makes me appreciate what's going on more. What seems silly, stilted, and improbable to a modern audience is actually a very understandable play that follows traditional story beats and tropes. When watched from the right point of view and state of mind, it's actually quite an amusing story with occasional moments of romance and heartbreak. Perhaps the best thing about this movie for a modern audience is watching Ben Kingsley, Fiona Shaw, and the others enjoy their roles so thoroughly. PS: I think the audience members that are glimpsed now and then was an inspired little touch.

i loved this movie. it was fun, humorous, entertaining, and witty. the play was first performed in 1732 but i think the plot meets (and excels) today's standards. Mira Sorvino did a great job as did all of the other cast members.if you liked Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" or any Shakespearean style plots of mistaken identity, deception, lies, love, comedic betrayal, and that sort of thing, you will enjoy this movie.(of course it is supposed to take place in France, but as everyone knows, they apparently all speak with English accents there. ha ha.)

Spoilers herein.Set physically in a well-manicured garden, managed by an obsessive gardener. Set philosophically in a similarly ordered mind-space, tended by two (co-equal) minds. Set dramatically in a narrative world formed by three cooperative directors (the original dramatist, the screen adapter, the filmer). Of these three, two of the affairs are false, and one is tentative. So we have the contemporary play audience flashed; we have the cinematic relationship similarly stuttered; we have the players playing actors playing roles (and one of these playing three roles to mirror the dramatist, adapter and filmer).`Love's Labor's Lost/Twelfth Night' meets `Rosencrantz and Guildenstern' meets `Draughtsman's Contract.'I love the idea, and appreciate the energy of the players and the apt set: that carried me over the flaws. But these flaws are significant: the excessive self-reference kills the rhythm of internal humor, the acting about acting seems downright silly in the many places where the enveloping direction was weak. The self-conscious editing was overly explicit, and could have easily been done precisely the same with bleeds instead of cuts with greater effect and no jarring.In the case of Peploe, the intelligence outstrips the skill -- in the case of the players, it is the other way around. I think a better strategy would be to try different philosophies of acting rather all from the same tradition as we have here. A more fluid camera could have helped as well. As it stands, we have something worth watching with the potential to have been great. But it abdicated.The director's credit at the beginning was one for the books. Perfect. It had the words stuck to the carriage wherein the characters are dressing as actors.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 4: Worth watching.