Love in the Time of Cholera 

This film taken from a Márquez novel was this afternoon matinee at Rancho Desperado. Although not great, it was good especially if you are a Marquez fan wanting to see his beautiful writing/ideas put to screen.. NETFLIX is doing a series from his Nobel Prize novel,  Cien Años de Soledad/One Hundred Years of Solitude. Am waiting with happy anticipation.

rŌbert

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Ohhhhh jerry, jerry, jerry. You’re trying to tell ME that this new movie version wasn’t great eventho it starred Javier Bardem?Ohhh jerry, jerry, now you’ve gone and done it. I shall never read your movie reviews again…. and neither will Gabriel Garcia Marquez

A review of a review from Tom McKenney’s sister

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Love in the Time of Cholera is a 2007 film directed by Mike Newell. Based on the novel of the same name by Gabriel García Márquez, it tells the story of a love triangle between Fermina Daza (played by Giovanna Mezzogiorno) and her two suitors, Florentino Ariza (Javier Bardem) and Doctor Juvenal Urbino (Benjamin Bratt) which spans 50 years, from 1880 to 1930.

Producer Scott Steindorff spent over three years courting Gabriel García Márquez for the rights to the book telling him that he was Florentino and would not give up until he got the rights.

It is the first filming of a García Márquez novel by a Hollywood studio, rather than by Latin American or Italian directors. It is also the first English-language work of Academy Award-nominated Brazilian actress Fernanda Montenegro, who portrays Tránsito Ariza.

In late 18th-century Cartagena, a river port in Colombia, Florentino Ariza falls in love at first sight with Fermina Daza. They secretly correspond, and she eventually agrees to marry him, but her father discovers their relationship and sends her to stay with distant relatives (mainly her grandmother and niece). When she returns some years later, Fermina agrees to marry Dr. Juvenal Urbino, her father’s choice. Their 50-year marriage is outwardly loving but inwardly marred by darker emotions. Fermina’s marriage devastates Florentino, who vows to remain a virgin, but his self-denial is thwarted by a tryst.

To help Florentino get over Fermina, his mother throws a willing widow into his bed, and Florentino discovers that sex is a very good pain reliever, one he uses to replace the opium that he had habitually smoked. Florentino begins to record and describe each of his sexual encounters, beginning with the widow, and eventually compiles over 600 entries.

Now a lowly clerk, Florentino plods resolutely over many years to approach the wealth and social standing of Dr. Urbino. When the now-elderly doctor dies suddenly, Florentino immediately and impertinently resumes courting Fermina.

Gabriel García Márquez

According to an interview by Colombian magazine Revista Semana, Scott Steindorff, producer of the film, showed an unreleased final edition of the film to Gabriel García Márquez in Mexico who at the end of the film is said to have exclaimed “Bravo!” with a smile on his face.^[2]