When Winter’s Tale was released theatrically on Valentine’s Day, the film was met with tepid to hostile reviews, scoring just 13% on Rotten Tomatoes. Our own Jeremy Fogelman called it a “bewildering mess” in his review, so I sat down to watch the new Blu-ray release with something less than wild enthusiasm. The two-hour film is based on a 627 page book by Mark Helprin. Writer and director Akiva Goldman was forced to distill an epic romance into a 120 page script, and unfortunately, the result is a bit lacking.

The story focuses on Peter Lake, a son of immigrants (dad is briefly played by Matt Bomer) in 1895 who were denied entry into the country because of an illness. They set the baby adrift in a model sailboat named City of Justice and the next thing we know, it’s 1916 and the baby has grown up to become Collin Farrell who is on the run from Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe) for reasons unknown. Peter discovers a white horse during his escape attempt, mounts the steed and magically flies over the iron gates to safety. But we still are unclear as to why Soames is after Peter and the horse … or is it a dog?

Soames uses some magic to locate Peter and the horse/dog, Peter escapes, breaks into the home of Isaac Penn (William Hurt), falls instantly in love with his daughter Beverly (Jessica Brown Findlay), who happens to be dying of consumption, and avoids Pearly’s clutches as the head to upstate New York to take up residence at the Lake of the Coheeries. Seems that Soames is actually a demon who has dominion over the five boroughs of New York but is forbidden to venture north by The Judge, aka Lucifer (played by a big name star in a small cameo which I won’t ruin). Beverly tells Peter that everyone has a miracle in them, and he believes he is her miracle and will prevent her from dying. He doesn’t, but that’s not the end of the story which jumps 100 years into the future (our present) without explanation. Peter is still Colin Farrell and Pearly is still determined to kill him once he gets whiff of him back in the city. (Still not sure whether he has been roaming the city for a hundred years or if he just suddenly woke up after being in limbo.)

Peter then meets Virginia Gamely (Jennifer Connelly) and her daughter Abby. Abby — surprise! — is dying from cancer, and now it seems Peter’s reason for being has become clear to everyone. (Peter also re-connects with Beverly’s younger sister, who is now an old woman played by Eva Marie Saint.) Except the audience who still has no clue what Peter is or why Pearly wants him, and the child, dead (he also had Beverly killed so Peter could not be her miracle, whatever that means). Unfortunately, we get very little in the way of plot exposition at this point because there’s about 30 minutes left to tell the rest of the story.

But even with all of the gaping plot holes, I still found myself moved by the love story and the corny ending. I did enjoy the relationship between Peter and Beverly, and the movie may have worked better had it been reworked to condense that story and expand on the present-day part. As it stands now, the audience gets totally invested in Peter and Beverly, but never has a chance to care much about Peter, Virginia and Abby. And we’re still baffled as to what the relationship is between Pearly and Peter (apparently, Pearly raised Peter and when he decided to leave Pearly’s gang, Pearly took offense). But, by the end, I still had a tear in my eye.

Warner Home Entertainment’s new Blu-ray release presents the film beautifully. The color palette is muted in the past and has a bit more color in the present, as intended. The story uses the concept of light as magic, and the lighting effects do enhance the scenes when applied. Detail is sharp as well (it should be noted that this was a digital production, and not shot on film although it does have a film-like quality). The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround mix isn’t intensive as far as the soundscape is concerned, but voices are clearly front and center while the film’s score and sound effects fill out the surrounds. It’s a perfectly fine representation of the theatrical experience.

The Blu-ray includes a handful of extras, but no audio commentary. These include:

Behind the Scenes: Winter’s Tale: A Timeless Love (6:08) — The actors and director discuss the concept of love which drives the story and how that idea was condensed from a 1000 page novel to a 120 page screenplay, as well as how New York is also a character in the story.

Behind the Scenes: Characters of Good and Evil (9:14) — The actors discuss working with each other, their relationships with writer/director Akiva Goldsman, and Colin’s relationship with the horse.

Additional Scenes (most of which do nothing to expand the story, but there is an interesting glimpse of a Native American family finding young Moses … erm, Peter on the shore which explains a scene later in the film with Graham Greene):

• “Peter’s Parents Sail Him Off to New York” Extended (1:42)
• “How Long You Been Doin’ This” Extended (1:34)
• “Athansor Breaks Free” Deleted (1:02)
• “I’d Snap Your Bones and Eat Your Eyes” Deleted (0:20)
• “Peter Visits Humpstone John” Extended (0:50)
• “Thems are Thieves” Extended (0:30)
• “Peter and Isaac Penn Discuss New Years” Deleted (1:08)
• “Yes, Baby” Deleted (0:20)
• “We Have to Stop the Treatments” Extended (1:40)
• “This One’s Personal” Extended (0:34)
• “Abby is Saved” Deleted (1:05)
• “Sometimes We Are Saved” Deleted (0:16)

Winter’s Tale could have been a great romantic film, but this certainly is a case where a book lives up to that “unfilmable” moniker. The story is just too dense to be distilled into a two-hour movie and perhaps would have worked better as a TV mini-series. Warner’s Blu-ray, though, is watchable enough but you still may be wondering what it was all about by the time the end credits roll. The movie is available as a single DVD (with the only extra being the Winter’s Tale: A Timeless Love featurette), and in a Blu-ray/DVD Combo with Ultraviolet Digital HD. Warner Home Entertainment graciously provided the Blu-ray/DVD Combo for review.

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Adaptation is difficult, that should have no argument. The most common adaptation tends to be book to movie, which ties into my underlying thesis, which is this: Just because you have a supremely willful desire and heartfelt drive to turn your favorite story into visual magic does not mean you will do it justice. Sometimes that love for the material is what causes the final product to suffer. Look at Watchmen, where Zack Snyder certainly saved the movie from being a complete abomination (by intervening with the studios), and yet fell prey to all manner of problems in tone, character, visual aesthetic, and structure. I still say Darren Aronofsky would’ve done it justice, but then again, I say that about all movies (I may be a bit of a fan of that guy).

When we’re kids, it’s easy to be caught in the magic and imagination of stories, and that becomes something different as adults, nostalgic love for the past and a deep seated desperation to feel that way again. Perhaps you might be able to do so by showing off your new movie. But that doesn’t mean the rest of us will be able to see through the haze of adaptation failure.

Winter’s Tale is from writer-director Akiva Goldsman (of A Beautiful Mind) based on the book of the same name, a massive 700 page story about a sort of alternate New York where angels and demons battle over the souls of us lowly humans. And miracles exist, naturally. This begins the first problem of the movie: confusion. Those familiar with the story will no doubt pick up on the many little things that us non-readers missed, but the movie immediately starts with jumping between multiple time periods, setting up mysteries that only slightly have payoffs.

And the payoffs are often more like “because I said so” instead of “oh, that makes sense” that elucidate and enlighten the audience. Colin Farrell plays Peter Lake, a thief in late 19th century New York City that’s chafing under the rule of crime boss (and also demon) Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe) so he tries to leave, I guess. But the interference of a magical flying horse (and sort of guardian angel, maybe literally?) causes Peter to stumble across young Beverly Penn (Jessica Brown Findlay), the eldest daughter in a very rich family but slowly dying of consumption. Cue a scene or two of the two chattering away to tell the audience that this truly is a magical, fated, tragic romance, although it seems like all the actual character building is offscreen, as we keep jumping to later on when they are closer and closer still. Part of the problem (another one) is that this so-called romance doesn’t seem to make sense, and despite the effort of the two actors, the dialogue fails to keep us invested as Peter tries to keep his beloved from dying.

Which brings us to problem number three: the script. From beginning to end, this movie looks lovely, showing off the winter setting of NYC, although some of the more obvious CGI elicits more giggles than gasps. That said, the dialogue is simplistic at best and silly at worst. Boatloads of odd concepts about angels and demons, with an actual appearance of Lucifer (in a bit of stunt casting that might’ve worked if the dialogue and visual effects weren’t hammy), and a touch of immortality. Magical realism is nothing new to movies, of course, and often the rules are ill-defined and simplistic, but the problem here is the rules aren’t simple. Nobody really seems to know how anything works. I read a little more about the book after seeing the movie, and apparently there is a lot of backstory that isn’t touched on at all in this film. It makes me feel like it suffers from the most common adaptation malady there is: “Hey, remember this!” Meaning, of course, that the movie is a series of reminders about great things you remembered from the book. Watchmen suffers from this as I mentioned, as do most of the Harry Potter movies. You can tell that everyone’s trying here, but that just makes it sadder when it fails.

There’s also a weird thematic disconnect between the stories, I suspect because so many of the scenes are rushed, yet because there’s so much material, the movie seems overlong at two hours long. Some bits are fun enough, and some of the romance scenes are nicely done, although there are more than a few parts where I was very close to falling asleep. So the movie is partially about miracles and religious “magic,” with sets of rules and laws that aren’t clearly defined yet are constantly discussed. There’s also the weird time jumps and implications of how miracles work, with the mild romance setting up things in the past, and extremely thinly defined “mother in the future” played by Jennifer Connelly, utterly wasted here.

My final point is this: If you want to see Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly in a movie that’s legitimately good, I’d hold out hopes for the upcoming Noah, a different sort of religiously magical film from Darren Aronofsky. Which seems a roundabout way of saying “this movie was targeted to come out Valentine’s Day weekend because of the romantic element but really isn’t worth your time.” I just hope that Akiva Goldsman is happy with it, because I know I’m not.

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