The movie centers on count Almasy who is a map maker employed to chat the expanse of the Sahara dessert along with other explorers like him.On his expedition, he encounters a couple whom he falls in love with the wife.With the break of the second world war, Almasy finds himself flung about by unraveling incidences which he recounts on his death bed after been saved and tended to in a monastery.
It's the sort of solemn production that is often mentioned as an Academy Award contender.This says less about the quality of the film than it does about its self-consciously lofty tone and its sense of self-importance.
The English Patient is a modern movie that breathes vivid new life into the cliches of old-fashioned motion pictures, recalling a time when movies were graceful, complex and leisurely.
It is, after all, quite a lot of movie, two hours and 42 minutes' worth, and the more movie you have, the greater the chances that not all of it will work equally well.
With its fine acting, sumptuous visuals and levels of intrigue, The English Patient boasts the elements of something greater than a love story. Too bad it devotes them to something less than a great love story.
It's an ambitious film and director Anthony Minghella's skill lies equally in his screenplay, which delivers explanation only in fragments but keeps us involved for what is an epic running time.
The film is a smashing success on its own terms, though as a transcendent love story it lacks the firm foundation in human reality that characterizes Lars Von Trier's superior Breaking the Waves.
It took a filmmaker with Anthony Minghella's vision to even attempt an adaptation of Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient. And it took a filmmaker with Minghella's talent to pull it off.
