Image courtesy of www.impawards.com
Director :
Lasse Hallstrom
Cast :
Heath Ledger……….Lord Jacomo Casanova
Sienna Miller……….Francesca Bruni
Natalie Dormer……….Victoria
Charlie Cox……….Giovanni Bruni
Philip Davis……….Bernardo Grudi
Jeremy Irons……….Instigator Pucci
Oliver Platt……….Lord Papprizzio
Lena Olin……….Lady Bruni
If there’s one thing Heath Ledger knows how to do is make period pieces with a sort of modern pulse to them. With A Knight’s Tale he brought a sort of action-hero persona to the nobility of being a medieval knight. And with Casanova, Ledger proves that even the most ruthless of sex-hounds can be swayed by the power of love.
Ledger stars as the legendary lothario Jacomo Casanova, a man who has a different woman for every hour of the day it seems. Targeted by the Vatican for his “crimes,” Casanova is given a dilemma: he can either face the hangman’s noose or go find himself a bride. Wanting to live another day, he quickly wins the hand of Victoria (Natalie Dormer). She’s a woman renowned for her chastity, and Casanova thinks his task is complete until he meets a woman who turns him down: Francesca Bruni (Sienna Miller). Bruni is a radical for her day and era, resistant to Casanova’s charms and wanting to be more than the second-class citizen she finds herself resigned to being. From here it’s a combination of farce and romantic comedy as Casanova aims to try and win her love while trying to change the person he is.
It’s a cute, if trite, romantic comedy that hits on more cylinders than it misses on. Casanova is a man of many desires who seeks to reform his ways; it’s every woman’s fantasy to be able to tame a man like him and as such the film panders to every sort of intellectually dishonest moment and thought women often times delude themselves into thinking about men. It’s a romantic update and fictionalization of an actual person that takes away from the actual Casanova himself.
Ledger’s Casanova is the usual romantic comedy lead of a man populating a romantic comedy. He’s charming and delightful, making it easy to see how any woman could fall under his sway. He has nothing really of note to distinguish him from other sorts of lotharios from other films both greater and lesser, from Hitch on up. After a remarkable turn in Brokeback Mountain, his Casanova isn’t anything ordinary or different in the genre. For the world’s greatest lover he isn’t anything special. What is special is his better half in the film, Sienna Miller.
Francesca is a wonderful character and a different take on being a woman for the era, as her ideas are a bit far-fetched for the times but she understands her place in this world. Miller, on the rise since Alfie, embeds her half of the equation with a subtle and powerful look at being a woman in her day and time. While given all of the usual sorts of romantic implications a female lead has, Francesca is a woman who wants what she wants on her terms and it’s quite fascinating to watch.
