Love In The Time Of Cholera is a sleeper film that should have won the Academy Award in the United States, but you know how it is—it's all political and they never really select the best picture or actors and actresses. Here the young Javier Bardem (who plays Florentino Ariza) falls in love as a pre-teen with Fermina (played by Giovanna Mezzogiorno), but when they are old enough to marry, the father (played by John Leguizamo) keeps them apart because the then young Florentino is more of a peasant and not rich. So the father sends his daughter off to another city, where she eventually marries the handsome Dr. Juvenal Urbino (played by Benjamin Bratt) who does love her, and she has a love for Dr. Urbino, but not the kind of love she had for Florentino. Florentino decides that there is no other one for him and that she his is complement. Although he has countless affairs throughout his life to try to forget her, he never can. Fermina Urbino goes on to have several children, and finally—after a lifetime over 50 years—the husband dies and Florentino tries to reunite with his one love. The children of Fermina, now grown, do not want this relationship to happen, and again there are obstacles in the way of their reuniting together. Without telling the ending, it's a must-see. Beautiful cinematography and a masterpiece of a film in both acting and directing. Director Mike Newell.
~Van of Urantia*MPAA = Motion Picture Association of America
