Good Idea, Lovely Locations, Absurd Dramatic ResolutionI gave The Lovers a FIVE because I found it interesting if for nothing else but a look at the workings of the East India Company. Also the location filming was lovely.
The story deals with a golden double-ring set called The Lovers and two time periods, the near future and 18th Century India. I guess it also deals with the eternal nature of true love even though we never see how such love grows...rather shallow here. The premise of one love through time is not executed well.
It jumps back and forth in time but mainly is rooted in India where Josh Hartnett is a Scots officer in the British Army who keeps slipping in and out of his accent.
The film tries to implant a mystical air to the past and future characters who somehow will be linked through time, Cloud Atlas style. For me the weak point was Hartnett's character, a seasoned and intelligent officer, hypnotically walking off into the night alone right into enemy territory. That was the absurd part.
Also, we never learn how and why the rings were found at the bottom of the ocean. But I can't say film wasn't entertaining. It was...yet not very fulfilling.
source5/10Nice score.The score is terrific, the scenery is gorgeous, the acting is mostly pretty good, and the story is... nonsensical.
There are two story timelines. The opening story timeline is set in the fairly near future, sometime later in the 21st century, with what appear to be Americans. But we spend very little time there. The main story timeline is 18th century India.
The backdrop of the main storyline, in India in 1778, was interesting and realistic, except that the British East India Company leaders were all hopelessly one-dimensional villains. The lead roles were well-played, the lead characters were sympathetic, and the story was drew me in.
But when you tell a great, big, long story, it ought to have a point. It ought to have something to do with the climax. This one left me wondering, "what was the point of all that?"
Plus, there was almost no meaningful connection between the two timelines. It just didn't make sense.
And the story made a promise that it didn't keep. At the beginning, we see an interesting artifact - a ring - in the wreck of a long- sunken ship. Someone with the initials "D.E." must have greatly valued it, we're told, because he or she drowned while clinging to the purse which contained that ring.
So, who was D.E., we wonder, and what was his story? The next scene takes us back in time, to 18th century India, and we settle back expecting to learn the story of D.E. and the ring. But we never do.
We do, indeed, hear a great long story - but we never find out about D.E. and the ring, or how it got onto that shipwreck. That was very annoying.
And what's with the two names for this movie, anyhow? Is it called "The Lovers" or "Singularity?"
As Maxwell Smart would say, "missed it by THAT much." I'll be generous and give it a 4, mainly just because I liked the music.
source4/10Epic paranormal love storyThis is essentially an epic love story which was supposed to have transcended time and space. Josh Hartnett plays dual characters: one as a diver/archaeologist type in the 21st Century and the second being a Scotsman working under the British colonials in the Indian subcontinent in the 17th Century. Tamsin Egerton plays his wife in the 21st Century and Bipasha Basu plays his love interest in 17th Century India.
Having read an interview by director Roland Joffe about the film, I was expecting much more involvement of quantum physics to be present in the film. Not necessarily the entire film to be explaining the theory but at least more play on parallel universe and different realities. I was expecting more sci-fi along the lines of the Source Code or Interstellar. Instead what we got was Titanic crossed with Bollywood.
If you are a sci-fi fan then you may be disappointed but if you are a romance fan then you may enjoy the film. Think Time Traveller's Wife, The Age of Adaline and other paranormal romances.
source6/10