If you're hoping that Love In The Time Of Cholera does justice to the novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, you can only be disappointed.

So let go of all that. The only way to enjoy this film at all is to put the book out of your mind. What you're left with is a lush costume epic about unrequited love and fewer homicidal impulses about filmmaking.

Love In The Time Of Cholera is wildly misguided, but it's a lavish production with a strong cast -- sort of like a Latino Gone With The Wind. Only not that good.

The story is set in Colombia, in the 19th century. Javier Bardem is Florentino Ariz, a young man who falls in love -- at first sight -- with a local girl named Fermina (Giovanna Mezzogiorno). She is rich and he is not, and her father (John Leguizamo, go figure) vows that they will never be together.

Fermina eventually marries a respected doctor (Benjamin Bratt, who seems to be fighting the urge to twirl his moustache) and they have a life together. Her change of heart regarding Florentino is glossed over in the film and makes no sense; it's a serious flaw in storytelling.

But Florentino never gets over Fermina. This is a tale of obsession, and it centres on his life as he carries a torch for her -- for more than 50 years. Florentino has many affairs and even keeps a diary of his sexual engagements, but his heart never belongs to anyone but Fermina. He happily waits a lifetime to have a second chance with her.

Love In The Time Of Cholera fails because it tries too hard. Rather than becoming something of its own, the movie attempts to recreate too much detail from the book; it feels jammed. People zip in and out of the story, and you glimpse Liev Schreiber and Hector Elizondo as they speed past, but you never get to know their characters.

The book is translated into film as a series of chronological events, and they are flat events at that.

Bardem's character, Florentino, comes across as weak and wacky, so it's tough to connect with his situation and his love for Fermina. And as Fermina, Giovanna Mezzogiorno never seems entirely real. Their story plays like a big TV movie.

Pity. Everyone in this movie begged to be part of it, and Marquez himself was hectored for years before he'd permit his book to be made into a movie.

He obviously had some misgivings.

You should, too.

(This film is rated R)
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