I was eager to see this despite its dismal reviews (5.5 out of 10 imdb, 18% critics and 51% audiences on rottentomatoes) because I loved the book and the director. The cinematography, locations, and music are lush but the finished product deserves the assessments above. Lisa See's novel is about two girls, Snow Flower and Lily, who are joined as friends for life even though they move in different social classes as they grow up in 19th century China. Wayne Wang's (I liked Chan is Missing (1982), Slam Dance (1987), The Joy Luck Club (1993), Chinese Box (1997), Last Holiday (2006), and especially Smoke (1995)) movie adds a 21st century counterpart which is confusing, since the same actresses play Snow Flower/Sophia (Gianna Jun) and Lily/Nina (Bingbing Li) as adults. The little girls (Yan Dai as little Snow Flower and Congmeng Guo as little Lily) are adorable, but it's not enough. I saw this in late July by myself, as Jack wasn't interested. He was right. I put off writing about it because I hate to pan movies but I can't help it in this case.
Richard Wong (new to me, he has 21 titles to his credit) shot the pretty pictures. Three writers--Angela Workman (her second credit), Ron Bass (his 27th, and I wrote about the ones I liked in Amelia, which I didn't much), and Michael K. Ray (his third)--are credited with ruining, er, adapting the novel.
The lovely music is by Rachel Portman (profiled in Never Let Me Go) and you can listen to a mix on this youtube page, which also has beautiful stills from the movie. Just watch this and then read the book.
No comments:
Post a Comment