Archive listings for The Golden Bowl (2002)

Independent (11Jan01): It's essentially a tale about property and control. An impecunious Italian prince, Amerigo ([Jeremy Northam]), is about to marry American heiress Maggie ([Kate Beckinsale]), daughter of Adam Verver ([Nick Nolte]), the coal billionaire and art collector. Maggie knows nothing of her fiancé's recent liaison with her old schoolfriend, Charlotte ([Uma Thurman]), who would have married the prince but for her own impoverishment. Instead she marries old man Verver and, by a faintly grotesque twist, becomes her ex-lover's mother-in-law. The clash between American innocence and Old World cunning never approaches the tragic intensity of the last screen version of James, [Iain Softley]'s wonderfully insinuating The Wings of The Dove. Nor does it match the fluency of its movement. [James Ivory] frames his shots with tremendous precision, and [Andrew Sanders]' production design keeps the interiors in a state of immaculate burnish. Yet while the eye can feast, the mind tends to wander, particularly in the latter stages. As for the heart, I must confess, it didn't get a look-in.