User reviews

The problem with 'Republic of Love' is that it is a film made because it has a good filmmaker, not a good script. There was totally inadequate attention to detail in the drawing of the lead characters, and the result is a sprawl that is tied together by a good visual sense, not a good narrative one. If you are making a political allegory, that can be fine, but if it is a love story, you are sunk. I kept thinking about all of those publicly funded organisations which had bank-rolled the film and, in spite of my leanings towards the public support of fine filmmakers, found myself thinking that people who were risking their own money would not have jumped with such a weak script (and barely adequate cast...)

Older but totally buff Bruce Greenwood (as Tom Avery) has been married three times and considers himself unlucky in love. He discusses romance with listeners in his job as a late-night radio talk show host. Often seated below his billboard image on the subway, Mr. Greenwood attracts some weird one-night stands, especially women with foot fetishes. Assured by one of his adopted mothers there is "a lid for every pot," Greenwood finds his lid in beautiful Emilia Fox (as Fay). She works on mermaid exhibits for a museum. When problems surface in Ms. Fox' parents' marriage, we are left to wonder if the institution will survive. Enjoyed Greenwood and Fox as actors, but never cared whether or not their characters were able to maneuver modern marriage intrusions. The plight of parents Edward Fox (as Richard) and Martha Henry (as Audrey) was more interesting.

***** The Republic of Love (9/11/03) Deepa Mehta ~ Bruce Greenwood, Emilia Fox, Edward Fox, Martha Henry

If the characters had been able to get over themselves, the viewer would have been able to breathe easier. The long looks – forget your lines? The oh-so-serious weighing of feelings, especially, in Fay – grow up, kid. I think it's called analysis paralysis. Her brother had her number. Where does all that probative introspection get her? It's good she rallied around her mother when needed, but was it really necessary to spin into withdrawal? Lash out at Tom when he calls? She's a baby. Someone really should have taken Tom's temperature. I think he was sick or was he just sleep walking? Just kind of drifts into things, including marriage. Use the brain. Get a pulse. Now, put the two together. The kinky Indian music was too strange. Maybe the mermaid idea was considered an artsy touch as well. These are supposed to be fairly adult people who hold down real jobs. Their courtship and relating revolve mainly around the initial newness of meeting and cohabiting. Pretty flimsy deal they got going here. Not surprising that it doesn't weather the first ill wind that blows its way. I guess their parents failed them along the way, but what else is new? You are supposed to acquire some life skills beyond that on your own. You're grown up now (40ish, in his case), so why can't you handle anything? Where's the strength for someone else? Consumed on little me, actually. Good luck on the marriage ("I'm so happy!"). Unfortunately, it takes a lot more than that. Oh, please finally get with it, or just go back home and settle into sucking your thumb in earnest.

This is a downer about two losers likely to remain that way.

The Republic of Love sadly confirms my suspicion that Deepa Mehta is a director of limited talent and vision. The film is dramatically and emotionally inert - a far, far cry from Carol Shields source novel. Certain sequences - for example, the lamentable nonsense about mermaids in the museum - are little short of embarrassing, with Mehta seemingly unable to construct convincing relationships. Certain sets look as if they were built on very limited budgets. The whole thing isn't helped by weak decisions in the casting department. Emilia Fox is cold and fails to convince us of any of her character's passion. Bruce Greenwood struggles to convince us of his heterosexuality. And Edward Fox is - well - just plain terrible. His accent sounds as it was trained at the Dick Van Dyke School of Elocution. A major misfire. Avoid.

THE REPUBLIC OF LOVE is yet another fine film from Canada based on Canadian Pulitzer Prize Winner (for 'The Stone Diaries') Carol Shields' novel by the same name, and written for the screen and directed by the gifted Deepa Mehta ('Earth', 'Fire', 'Water', etc). It is a satisfying story about the human boundaries set by/for love and how those 'republics' touch and clash and interact.

Tom Avery (the very gifted actor Bruce Greenwood) was an illegitimate child, raised by a homemaker class as a teaching lesson in how young brides to be should learn the skills of tending house, who has grown up, married three times out of a need for belonging and for being loved, and is currently unattached, making his living as a night talk show host helping the lonely hearts. Into his life steps the beautiful museum curator, currently immersed in a Mermaid exhibition, by the name of Fay (Emilia Fox) who remains single because of her exceptionally high demands for a partner. The two meet, fall immediately in love much to their individual surprise, and proceed to court and encounter other couples (especially their parents) who seem to hold the winning medals for perfect marriage.

Fay's parents (James Fox is Richard, the father) have just celebrated their anniversary when Richard abruptly decides to leave his wife. Fay runs to her mother's rescue, leaving Tom alone and the apparent brunt of Fay's disillusion of marriage. The changes that occur cause Tom to reflect on his history of marrying too often in unions that have not met with success. How Fay and Tom ultimately resolve the abutments of their personal republics is the part of the story that carries the film.

The entire cast includes some of Canada's finest actors and the film is solidly directed by Mehta. There are aspects that disrupt the flow of the story, the main one being the incessant and very loud East Indian music that seems wholly out of place and is at best distracting (the score was written by Talvin Singh). Mehta also elects to throw in some bizarre cutesy animation at the end that for this viewer cheapens the story. But flaws aside, this is a fine film graced by the presence of Bruce Greenwood and Emilia Fox. Recommended entry from Film Movement. Grady Harp

Tom Avery (Bruce Greenwood) is a late night radio DJ in Toronto and has already three divorces. Fay McLeod (Emilia Fox) is writing a mermaid book and living in a loveless relationship.

Director Deepa Mehta is definitely trying to do something with the washed out color cinematography. She's obviously denoting the lack of love in the two leads' lives. It's heavy handed. Quite frankly, I rather have it black and white. Black and white can be beautiful in its sadness. Washed out cinematography makes the film look bad and tired. The cinematography is still weak after more color is added. The movie never really recovers from the early tired washed out look. I do like the pairing of Greenwood and Fox. They are both charismatic actors. The cactus is cute and that's a solid meet-cute non-meeting. This movie is full of interesting ideas but they don't add up to what it wants to be.

I agree with the previous commentary that there is an excellent director at work in this film, and that the script can be rather thin at times. However, the chemistry between Bruce Greenwood and Emilia Fox save the movie. The ups and downs they face have some similar correlation to the problems we all face in real life, although there are times when one wonders about their strange situations. Still, both actors have created full, living and breathing characters for us to enjoy and, while at times we wonder why the story heads in a certain direction, we are still captivated by the relationship these two actors have created for the screen.

In my youth I was never a fan of Canadian productions. Films like this keep changing my mind and deserve all the support we can give it.

Get your lover, a bottle of your favourite wine and enjoy; it's worth it.

This is the new offering by Deepa Mehta, most recently she of Hollywood Bollywood, a Canadian hit last year. In fact there is an `in' joke in Republic of Love and if you have seen H.B. you'll spot it. The movie is based on a book by the late Carol Shields and surmises that each of us is our own `republic'. The theme of the movie is based on `geography is destiny' and it seems so in this case.

Republic of Love is a love story between two very different people, Tom and Fay. Tom was illegitimate and his mother, we are told, suffered from post partum depression. Tom was used as a practice baby for a class of young homemakers to be and thus had his start overlooked and spoiled by 27 `mothers'. This seems to have shaped his destiny. He is now in his early 40's, married and divorced 3 times and he wonders what love really is. He gets told every night by his listeners - he is a late night radio talk and music show host - and he gets a wide range of opinions from bitter to sentimental. He is also surrounded by good relationships so why is it so difficult for him to find one that lasts?

Fay is a museum curator, never married, whose parents have been happily married for 40 years. This has shaped her destiny. She too us surrounded by happy relationships. In addition to her parents' marriage, Her brother is married with kids, her godparents have never been married but are devoted to each other. All of this perceived perfection has the effect of making Fay keep her relationships at arms' length, a little detached. They never work out because they couldn't possibly measure up to her parents' shining example. She has just pushed away her current boyfriend because he wants to move in.

Tom and Fay turn out to have several mutual acquaintances. She even knows all of his ex wives. Tom and Fay meet at a children's Halloween party and it's literally love at first sight. Tom realizes what love really feels like and she in turn, is suddenly and inexorably ready to take that leap of faith into the sea of commitment. Serendipitously, they even live in the same apartment building, two floors apart. Clearly, it's meant to be.

Ah, but why bother making a movie at all if it was as open and shut as that? Fay's parents split up out of the blue which rocks her to her core and she doesn't deal with it very well. See? Even perfect relationships don't last!

I saw it at the Atlantic Film Festival and we had a brief introduction to it by one of the producers who described the movie as being about the different colours of love, different kinds of relationships and how they work for the different couples including the dynamics between Fay and her father and Tom and his mother who found the love of her life finally at age 52.

We all know that our relationships with our parents can have a profound effect on our adult relationships with others and all that is reflected here. Not in enough detail, however. You always feel like there should be more to the story, or that some link is missing. That is often what happens when adapting a book for the screen. The performances are all very good including a delightful one by Jackie Borroughs as Tom's mother. Most of us Canadians will remember her as Aunt Hetty from The Road to Avonlea. There are one or two other faces that will be familiar to Canadian film fans (Rebecca Jenkins). The cast seems mainly Caucasian yet the background music is most definitely Indian-Asian in flavour which seemed out of place to me so many I missed something there.

It's not a bad movie, but it was predictable as well. Fay's main area of expertise at the museum of Folklore, currently, is documenting and researching sightings of mermaids, a mythical unobtainable creature of perfection. Duh. Tom works nights in an underground `city', deserted once the overhead office blocks empty for the day (Toronto's PATH system it looks like). He's out of touch with the day to day reality, comings and goings of most people he knows and aside from his producer, spends his nights talking to lonely insomniacs.

It all works out in the end. It's a love story and nobody would go to see it if it didn't. Is it worth seeing? Yes. It's a good movie, but not a great one.

I love romantic movies with a bit of the comedic. This movie filled that need wonderfully and added mythic tone as well with both Mermaids and Indian music/themes. I have to admit the script's attempt to capture the complex history and intertwined lives was a bit difficult to follow on first blush. However, given the important theme of this interconnectedness (wow what a silly term), I can understand the desire, need, and effort.

There are few movies that i return to again and again, Still Breathing, Pleasantville, Beat of the Heart, etc. that give me that warm feeling inside that love is possible. Yeah I know its supposed to be complicated changing etc. and more than a bit self centered, e.g., Woody Allen's movies are rife with that. I would love to get the soundtrack of this movie as well, but fear that may be hard to do, suspect I will have to track down each piece myself online for my pod.

Returning to the movie -- This movie also hearkens back to 30s and 40s when it was OK to have a romantic script. Among the actor's I particularly enjoyed the performance of Fay (E. Fox) and look forward to seeing more of her work.

This is such a beautiful film about love in all its complications. Wasn't sure where it was heading at times, but glad I stayed the course. An interesting cast - especially Greenwood and Emilia Fox - with a good mix of known and unknown actors. Each character is richly different and strangely, weirdly odd. The complexity of relationships - ahh. The diverse relationships portrayed made me want to know more back story, however, what is presented is just enough. Everyone seemed just like folks you might know. I also like the cinematography - the camera felt right for whatever was present at the moment. And the music is sublime. This film makes me appreciate Canadian movies - can see why it was a Toronto Film Festival selection.

Words cannot describe the distance between the novel and the piece of work on the screen. Yes, I know, "novels suffer in transition to the screen." But they should not suffer this badly. Carol shields deserves better treatment and not from a "Bollywood" director who claims to be Canadian by paperwork.