Who Knew Art and Debauchery Could Be So Annoyingly Dull?
Elsa Zylberstein gives a very irritating, mannered performance. Every time that she screams or yells (and she does that quite often in this movie)you wonder if she understands English well enough to understand what she's saying. She also changes accents several times throughout the course of the movie.Garcia's accent lapses from Italian to Brooklyn, (which is odd considering he's from LA). Plus he's gotten old and fat.
As a biography, it doesn't really stick to the facts, especially with regard to Modigliani's death.
As a romance, it's a love story between a drug addict/alcoholic and his punching bag/doormat/unfit mother/ model. Hardly Romeo and Juliet.
As a tragedy, generally a movie about a tragic couple shouldn't make you think, "phew! Thank god those two aren't around breathing the same air as me anymore!" As a period piece, its set in Paris in the 1920's and filmed in Rumania with an anachronistic soundtrack.
As a movie about artists, aside from one nice sequence where Picasso and Modigliani converse with Renoir at his estate, it seems to be this movie's contention that painters spend most of their time drinking absinthe, mistreating their wives or mistresses, acting like pompous egomaniacs and occasionally firing or pointing guns at one another.
Pretty much a botched job from start to finish. Writer, director, and cast should all hang their heads in shame.
Ignore any positive comments you see here. Don't waste your time or money on this nonsense.
score 2/10
rob2661 16 May 2008
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1875070/35114
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