![]() ![]() Sweeping vistas of the African Sahara desert spring to mind when approaching the reading of Michael Ondaatje’s 1992 Booker Prize winner – the result of the Oscar-winning film adaptation of the same name with its focus on the love story between the ‘English patient’ and the newly-wed British socialite, Katharine Clifton. Nominated for 12 Oscars in 1997 including best actor, actress & adapted screenplay, won 9 including best film, director, cinematographer, score – Gabriel Yared – & supporting actress, Juliette Binoche. But the separate narratives of pre-war Egypt and end-of-war Italy are disconnected and strangely unengaging in this adaptation of Michael Ondaatje’s Booker Prize winning novel. Intelligent, romantic but emotionally inert, director Anthony Minghella ( Cold Mountain, The Talented Mr Ripley) draws fine performances from Fiennes and Scott. Cared for by a Canadian nurse (Juliette Binoche – Chocolat, Cloud of Sils Maria), lucid and delirious with morphine, Almásy recalls the doomed love affair with Katherine Clifton (Kristin Scott Thomas – Sarah’s Key, Darkest Hour), wife of a British spy in Egypt. ![]() A lush, epic, sweeping blockbuster, this Oscar-winning feature is, by today’s standards, overblown and all a little dull and boring.Īs World War II approaches its end, a badly burnt Count Almásy (Ralph Fiennes – Schindler’s List, Harry Potter) lies dying in an abandoned villa on the outskirts of Florence. ![]()
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