Alonso Quixano eats dinner with the Mayor once a month, walks to church once a week and is shaved by the barber every other day. He longs for more than this and it is his love for the tales of knights and adventures that sees him rename himself as Don Quixote and set out with sidekick Sancho Panza, to whom he has promised an island. Promising his love to the beautiful maid Aldonza (who he has renamed Dulchinea), Quixote sets out for four years of adventure, to spread his fame and prove himself worthy of the hand of Dulchinea.
I wasn't sure quite to expect from this film. Primary in my thoughts was the fact that the source material is one of those things that is difficult to bring to film and indeed I have recently seen the documentary on Gilliam's failed attempt to do so. That this was a TVM with a cast more famous recently for their television work, a director whose best work is behind him and a writer famous for Rumpole of the Bailey. All this conspired to suggest that what I would watch would be little more than a very slight romp for everyone involved in the south of Spain. To some degree this is true but I actually enjoyed the film more than I expected.
Which is not the same as saying it is brilliant (as many have done here). Rather I found the film to be too long and deliberate, which did rather leave the material exposed as wanting. At its core I did find that the world of fantasy and aspiration around Quixote was pretty engaging for stretches of the film but it frustrated me the way that it seemed in no rush to really go anywhere. Had it had more depth and complexity in the characters then this might have been worth it, but as it was it left too much to the actors and didn't really bring up people beyond the obvious narrative development thereof. This was a shame because the performances were actually pretty good and deserved more to work with. Lithgow is the best example of what I mean. He gets the mix of madness and hope just right, producing a figure that is fun and engaging at the same time. However without the material to work with, he is left working as hard as he can but superficially nothing wrong with that in itself but as the time runs on it does wear thin. Hoskins is similar he is fun but his one-note turn does run out of steam with a lot of the film left to go. Rossellini and Williams are not that great and sort of drift around the edges, with the rest of the support doing so-so work.
The direction is solid if not spectacular perhaps showing a lack of imagination across the material as he tends to go for the easy effect when it comes. The use of southern Spain is a good choice and does give the film a sense of place that helps cover up for other faults. Overall then this was better than I expected but still not a great telling. It lacks complexity and plays a straight bat throughout which becomes more and more of a problem as the overly-long running time exposes the weaknesses.
