CASANOVA (2005) **1/2 Heath Ledger is at least somewhat credible as Casanova-which is pretty impressive if you think about it-and more entertaining than that. Sienna Miller is more convincing as a feminist a few hundred years ahead of the curve, and so they're off to all sorts of good fun. In leading us to it, they are fortunately assisted by some excellent performances on the periphery by Jeremy Irons (as usual), Oliver Platt, Leigh Lawson and Lena Olin (kind of in and out, but some perfect resonations). Mr Irons is brilliant as the embodiment of the Inquisition; they've toned it all down quite a bit (reasonably so, I mean you can't have an authentic romantic comedy with the real Inquisition running around in the middle of it, can you?), but he gets the blunt, brutal, stupidity and wildly repressed jealousy manifest as intolerance across well enough. For all of its goodness and occasionally even wonderfulness, it's very difficult to imagine that this film is directed by the same man who directed Mitt liv som hund : the power and glory of Hollywood are incredible things, and I guess Lasse Hallström has negotiated his way through it all with his soul intact, though you have to think he misses his ambition and artistic sensibilities. Not that there's no sign of genius: there it, but it appears in mere flourishes, there is neither attempt towards nor manifestation of anything sustained. He's satisfied, here, making a good movie that will do some box office. To give him credit, the approach of defining Venice by the use of interiors-all but ignoring the canals-is highly unorthodox and well done. But in the great ten or fifteen musketeers climactic scene it's so clearly apparent that he's capable of so much better in so many ways, that the scene is almost more frustrating than it is entertaining. And it is highly entertaining.
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