For All Its Candor, "Winter's Tale" Falls Flat With Critics

Winter’s Tale (not to be confused with the Shakespeare play) starring Colin Farrell, premieres today to high expectations. For writer/director Akiva Goldsman, it’s been a labor of love, but a long and complicated one. Goldsman spoke to The Hollywood Reporter earlier this week, explaining some of the trouble he ran into with Winter’s Tale, as well as his personal life during pre-production.

"This movie is kind of an exercise in faith," he told THR. "I was trying to write it, and my wife passed away while I was writing the screenplay, and I didn't think I'd do much of anything after that. This became kind of a Hail Mary to the idea that there's a peacefulness behind random acts of love."

In the end, Goldsman managed to turn the 800-page book into a moving and intelligent script, which instantly grabbed Colin Farrell’s attention – or so the actor says: "It was something, more than anything I've ever read, that lacked guile and lacked edge and was completely without any cynical ambitions. It was just completely filled with hope and sweetness and sentimentality. And I'd never read anything like that."

Watch the Winter's Tale trailer below.

Click through to the next page for stills, reviews and more of Goldsman's commentary.

Goldsman has plenty of experience adapting novels for the big screen – his writing credentials include A Beautiful Mind, I, Robot and _The Da Vinci Cod_e, among others – but Winter’s Tale marks his directorial debut.

"I didn't anticipate quite how remarkably personal directing is. I've been calling all my director friends and saying, 'I'm sorry, I never understood' because it is very different," Goldsman told THR. "No matter what you do in the other jobs, you're a little bit rescuing, and here there's no one to rescue but yourself."

The film’s stars, however, have nothing but praise for the director, especially those who have worked on his other films. Will Smith (I, Robot) and Russell Crowe (A Beautiful Mind) both appear in Winter’s Tale. Smith has a cameo and Crowe has a larger role, but Goldsman said both were the result of "20 years of favors."

Despite the director and the actors’ obvious devotion to the project, Winter’s Tale isn’t faring too well in reviews. With a 14% current score on Rotten Tomatoes, the film has been called “Clumsy and inert, a lumbering white elephant,” (New York Times) its characters “unconvincing” and the dialogue – “sanctimonious” (USA Today). So is it worth the ticket then? Maybe just skip the first week screenings.