Initially set on being a dairy farmer, the aristocratic Karen Blixen travels to Africa to join her womanizing husband, Bror, who instead spends their money on a coffee plantation. There Karen has a passionate love affair with a free-spirited big-game hunter.
Luedtke and Pollack bought these high-priced literary sources only to chuck them for a conventional, largely fictionalized movie romance.
Orlando Sentinel
January 06, 2014
The relationship of Karen and Denys is a prickly and, despite the era in which it is set, curiously modern one. It's also at the heart of this understated movie.
Out of Africa has the sheen of artsiness and the gloss of two big-name actors. Unfortunately, that`s not quite enough in the absence of a story with vigor and passion.
Maybe the problem of the pacing is simply the nature of the beast these days with expensive period pieces. Once the difficult details are all in place, it may be too much to expect a director to resist milking every scene for more than it's worth.
Out of Africa is a splendid example of that persistent genre, the coffeetable movie. It's big, beautiful, and imposing. But there isn't much to it, and pretty pictures -- replacing ideas, not supporting them -- are its only real attraction.
Out of Africa is, at last, the free-spirited, fullhearted gesture that everyone has been waiting for the movies to make all decade long. It reclaims the emotional territory that is rightfully theirs.
The relationship between Karen Blixen and her British lover, Denys Finch Hatton, may fail to catch fire. But the production itself is so exquisitely served that you can't help but be grateful for this extraordinary visual treat.
