The Triumph of Love (2002)

Instant Favorite.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

An 18th century princess(Miss M.Sorvino) wants to restore the rightful heir to the throne of her country.He is incommunicado,living with a famous philosopher and his sister deep in the countryside.She decides the only way to get close to him is to seduce the philosopher,his sister and the prince himself in no particular order.Miss Sorvino has all the knowing innocence required of a Comedy Francaise heroine.Of course she is not in the least believable,but that's the whole point."The Triumph of love" is,in its entirety,an exercise in deception.But it is not a deception that is meant to fool anybody but the play's characters. The beauty of the film as an entity is quite overwhelming.The colour is exquisitely rendered,the lush grounds of the philosopher's house are as vividly verdant as a Brazilian rain forest. Each shot is carefully composed to show off the performers to their best advantage. None of the performances is particularly subtle,nor are they meant to be.This is not serious drama,nor serious anything else.We are seeing a filmed play,a comedy of the sort that was once popular all over Europe,Miss Peploe could not have made that much clearer short of putting the camera crew in the action. Miss Fiona Shaw is absolutely outstanding as the philosopher's sister.

Yikes. This is pretty bad. The play isn't great to begin with, and the decision to transfer it to film does it no favours - especially as Peploe doesn't decide how she wants to treat the material's theatrical origins (we get occasional glances of an observing theatre audience etc.) and has decided to go with a jumpy editing style that is intended to keep reminding you that you're watching a film, whereas in fact it only serves to remind you that you are watching a very poor film by a director who is overwhelmed by her material. Mira Sorvino's central performance is breath-takingly poor: stage-y and plummy, it's as if she's playing the part via Helena Bonham-Carter's Merchant Ivory oeuvre. Only Fiona Shaw delivers a performance of note - and it may be that her theatrical pedigree means that she is best able to handle the material - but it's hard to watch a film for one performance alone, even if that performance is as light, truthful and entire as Shaw's. Ben Kingsley turns in an average and disengaged turn, and Diana Rigg's daughter, Rachel Stirling plays her supporting role as just that. Sadly, none of Bertolucci's magic has rubbed off on his wife if this film is to be the evidence.

"Triumph of Love" is proof that not every Comédie-Française author who uses cross-dressing disguised courtship like Shakespeare is worth seeing. Or maybe something was lost in the translation of this adaptation of Marivaux, a Commedia Dell Arte-inspired playwright of whom Brittannica says: "His nuanced feeling and clever wordplay became known as marivaudage." While Mira Sorvino has fun dangling three mixed-up romances, her pants role wasn't even up to Cherubino in "Marriage of Figaro."The herky-jerky editing is annoying and just seems to indicate that a lot of takes were needed for each long speech.Best was Fiona Shaw as the fooled spinster, as well as the costumes.The glimpses of audience we see and the closing curtain call to wink that this is all artifice doesn't really help.(originally written 5/29/2002)

This is a very light period piece, in the spirit of plays like a midsummer night's dream, based on a 17th century farce. Don't expect the type of comedy that will make you laugh out loud, it's more the atmosphere of things not to be taken too seriously, particularly the princess having to pass as a young man. In the spirit of the movie and of older plays it's all perfectly normal and acceptable, because these kind of stories sacrifice believability in favor of good fun. And though flawed, the film is much better than the hugely overrated Shakespeare in Love.What I did have a problem with, was the horrible jump-cut editing. In a lot of scenes there were useless, unnecessary cuts because the camera did not even switch views, it looked extremely unnatural. Did someone spill coffee on some of the tape so they had to leave some out? Now the acting is what saves the film, I was especially delighted with Mira Sorvino and Ben Kingsley who both skillfully display grotesque but pleasant, sympathetic personalities. It was fun to see Mira in a men's outfit with boyish mannerisms tho still maintaining a feminine look. Also, the backdrops (of the 18th century-design garden and house) are gorgeous, real eyecandy.I bought this film for quite some money because I was very curious about it and have become fan of Sorvino. I would have rented it, would it have been available, but had to find it somewhere on amazon. But even though it wasn't entirely worth the money, I had a reasonably good time. If you want to see Mira's best, go watch Wisegirls, but this one is worth a watch as well! Enjoy.I give it 7 out of 10