note:  I’ve decided to go back to doing individual reviews for each film in my marathons.  Please continue to enjoy.

Having decided to marry, Bror Blixen (Klaus Maria Brandauer), Karin (Meryl Streep) migrates to Africa to do so and run a farm while she’s there.  Eventually she finds that she meets Denys (Robert Redford) and falls madly in love with him after discovering that this marriage she wanted turned out to be nothing like she expected.  The film chronicles Karin’s time in Africa.

I chose this marathon to follow my past for the reason that I intended to do it in February, and therefore make it all seasonal and all.  Now it is feeling more and more foolish and will probably end up being more work than anything else.  I’ve never denied that I am a bit of a sap.  I can love a lot of sappy love tales, however there are few that just don’t sit well with me.  When walking back in time to when men were men and women still remained all pretty and pampered and romanticised love into this thing that isn’t more than two people finding a way to live together and still enjoy each other.  However, it’s time for a month of grand gestures by men and women crying on screen because it’s time for romance.

My biggest problem with this movie has to be with the main character, Karin.  As great a performance Streep gives us, the character herself is foolish at so many times throughout the film. She migrates all the way to Africa to marry her friend, and she never really knew what she was getting into.  She probably guessed it would be like a crash course in love, where she would be best friends with Bror and eventually it would become love.  Except the man knew exactly what it was, he married her for the money and his freedom, and she married him for the title.  So she complains bitterly of how she’s left alone for time on end with this farm that she never really wanted when in truth she’s the one that is to blame.  So I can’t feel sorry for her at all when her marriage ends in disappointment.  Not to say that Bror had treated her like he should’ve.

I found myself enthralled in the romance a bit though as soon as Redford entered the picture.  It was almost as if, just like Karin, the intrigue of this larger than life character was what the story needed.  We’re given a dull Baroness from Denmark who has no idea of how to really do things in Africa and as soon as we’re about to nod off figuring that there won’t be anything to enjoy from this movie we’re introduced to this hunter who’s out and about the plains living on the land and I couldn’t take my eyes off of him because, like Karin, we want to know more instantly.

Sydney Pollack takes his time to make sure that we learn what Africa was, and how slowly but surely it changed under the British colonization.  Even though we are a bit isolated from the biggest changes that happened in Africa during this time, since we spend most of the film on Karin’s farm where she takes the approach that she is the one encroaching on the native’s land, you still get the odd feeling that something bad is happening out there in the world.  However, even though this slow pace is done for purpose, it didn’t help me sitting there wondering how much longer I’d have to suffer with Karin’s whining about how she doesn’t get it how she wants it.

It’s a movie that I get why people love it, but definitely not anything game changing for me.  Worth a look if you’re the target audience, but something to fear if you’re not.

IMDB says 7.0/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 61%

I say 5.5/10

Next Film: The Notebook (2004)