Again, it’s an end-of-month archival expansion here at Shared Darkness, ergo
this DVD review of The Golden Bowl, originally published upon its release in the wintry holiday months of 2001. To wit:

The
Golden Bowl is a sumptuously costumed, comfortably bloated and generally well-acted
affair that, curiously, doesn’t elicit much of a response. An intricately
plotted tale of thwarted love and betrayal set between 1903 and 1909, The Golden Bowl tells the story of
extravagantly wealthy American widower Adam Verver (Nick Nolte) and his
sheltered daughter Maggie (Kate Beckinsale). Adam spends most of his time
collecting precious works of art for his planned museum in what is always
referred to as only an “American city.” By chance — and perhaps something
more — they both marry at the same time, only to discover that their respective
spouses, a beautiful but clingy former friend of Maggie’s named Charlotte Stant
(Uma Thurman) and an impoverished Italian aristocrat named Prince Amerigo
(Jeremy Northam), are romantically entangled with one another.

It’s this
foursome, pairing off in all sorts of different and interesting ways, that
serves as the strength of The Golden Bowl.
Nolte delivers an intelligent, mannered performance, and Northam is a talented
actor and fine as rain here, though it remains a bit disconcerting throughout
the film’s running to watch him portray a born-and-bred Italian. Finally,
Beckinsale pokes through the emotional mutedness of both the times and the
script; we see her passion and desire, even if the character of Maggie is often
a puzzlingly reactive figure. So, to recap: decent screenplay, superb acting,
fantastic set design and photography — then why doesn’t this movie feel great? Well, at two hours and 10
minutes, it is a bit long. But mainly it’s just that the metaphors deployed are
fairly obvious and the slow, played-out peacocks’ dance of romantic discovery
and recrimination that the film puts on display a bit tiresome. Fans of the
actors involved may likely find this adaptation a Golden experience; others, however, may want to get to the bottom
of another Bowl. Still, the
widescreen DVD transfer, with both English 5.1 and French 2.0 audio, does a
fantastic job of capturing Tony Pierce-Roberts’ cinematography, particularly in
glorious establishing sequences at the Verger estate in Fawns and the Palazzo
Ugolini. Other air-quote extras are fairly sparse, with only scene selection, biographies,
subtitles and the movie’s theatrical trailer. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. C (Movie) C- (Disc)