Film: Tristan + Isolde

Tristan + Isolde is the story of young lovers torn apart by the cruel fate of living in a world divided by history, politics and geography. The details of the forces keeping them apart don't really matter: all you need to know is that the stars have conspired against them, and their love can never be. It's clear from the start - fate has pulled them together, and fate will tear them apart.

All that matters is whether you can give yourself over to the star-crossed romance. Can you engage with a tale of a forlorn young man who washes up on an Irish shore in a funeral boat - a funeral boat his friends and step-parents put him in after believing him killed in battle? Can you believe that he'd be found by a beautiful princess, who would tend to his injuries and rapidly fall in love with him? Can you feel their hearts breaking more and more as time goes by, as circumstance after circumstance attempts to destroy their fatalistic bond?

The answer will probably be yes. Only the cynic or the genuine unromantic would have trouble letting themselves go in Tristan + Isolde.

You may well find fault with an unsurprisingly bombastic musical score, or the occasional bout of self-conscious histrionics from the leads, or perhaps the heavy-handed direction of Kevin Reynolds (no stranger to heavy-handed ye olde times movies, having helmed Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves, Rapa Nui and The Count Of Monte Cristo). But the faults are a predictable - and perhaps unavoidable - by-product of a film dedicated to doomed young love. (Can you think of a film about doomed young love that doesn't involve self-conscious histrionics from the leads?).

Tristan, played by James Franco - a man who was cast in a James Dean biopic for very obvious reasons - is everything an audience could want: he's lovestruck, romantic, doe-eyed and spends a fair chunk of the film walking about with no shirt on. Sophia Myles, as Isolde, delivers a fine performance that is very nearly overwhelmed by her stunning good looks. Rufus Sewell - as the king Isolde is eventually set to wed, and Tristan's step-father - is in seriously good form, looking betrayed, defiant, loyal and, most impressively, genuinely in love.

You should know what to expect from Tristan + Isolde. If you're imagining sweeping shots of lush, green countryside, you're on the right track. There are the obligatory spurts of violence - this was the olden days, and those days were all about lopping someone's hand off in the name of your king. There are the scenes of merryment in the village, in which lots of people wearing hessian sacks drink mead from giant mugs and do jigs. It's all par for the course, and the film would feel strange without it. This is a film about romance, not film-making. And it delivers the romance.

Tristan + Isolde is out now.

(Originally published at Rouser).