July 4, 2009: The English Patient
Ugh.
This was my feeling: a) after I first saw The English Patient upon its original theatrical release; b) when it won Best Picture for 1996; c) any time I’ve since contemplated re-watching to see if I liked it any better.
The time finally came. I sat and watched The English Patient, and my poor wife who had previously seen the film and didn’t hate it (she has also read the book), joined in to suffer along with me. And indeed, while I can see the merits of the film a bit better now, it’s totally not my cup of tea, and I expect that another 15-20 years will pass before I spend time on it again.
I won’t go into a lot of detail in this review, since I’m clearly missing something about this story. As I recall, my initial impression of the plot was that these two supposedly star-crossed lovers enjoyed a passionate first meeting, and any time they ever saw each other again, they were fighting with each other. That didn’t really make sense to me, although I see now that it’s a bit more subtle than that, and that their passion was what led to their fiery disagreements. Still, I don’t have a lot of time for romance stories where the two leads are at each other’s throats all the time.
After recently reading Peter Biskind’s Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film, I now have a far better understanding of the Oscar process through the 1990s, and how The English Patient was essentially a pawn, a purpose-built awards-bait film with a troubled production history, which Miramax scooped up on the cheap and promoted to death, pulling strings and cashing in personal favours to get the votes and end up with their first ever Best Picture Oscar winner. It may be telling that among its 9 awards are NOT lead actor/actress statues, suggesting that while this is a technically proficient film and comfortable territory for the Academy, the characters portrayed are not ultimately convincing. I’m sure that reading the book would enlighten me further, but that’s not going to happen any time soon. I’ve got other priorities.
Still sucks, even 13 years later.
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