Tristan + Isolde **** (2006, James Franco, Sophia Myles, Rufus Sewell) – Classic Movie Review 1431

James Franco stars as a dreamy Tristan and Sophia Myles as his feisty royal  lover in director Kevin Reynolds’s 2006 epic romantic drama film based on the medieval romantic legend set in the Dark Ages in Britain and Ireland.

Rufus Sewell co-stars as Lord Marke of Cornwall, who plans to unify the various British tribes with him as high king to resist Irish domination. Marke welcomes the boy Tristan into his home and regards him as a son. He grows into a courageous warrior fiercely loyalty to Marke.

Tristan and his fellow Cornish warriors launch an attack on an Irish slave caravan. In the battle, he fights Morholt, Donnchadh’s champion and leader of his army, to whom Princess Isolde has been promised in marriage. Though he kills Morholt and Donnchadh’s forces are overrun, Tristan is severely wounded, believed dead. But Isolde and her maid Bragnae give an antidote to the poison from Morholt’s sword and secretly nurse him back to health. This is just the beginning of their troubles.

Tristan + Isolde is a long-cherished labour of love by Ridley Scott, who had been working on an adaptation since the mid-seventies, and eventually produced it with his late brother Tony Scott for their Scott Free company. It was costly and sadly none too popular, earning only $26million worldwide, and it proved its production company Franchise Pictures’ last film before bankruptcy.

But this hugely misunderstood and neglected movie is glorious to look at and wonderfully romantic, as is appropriate to its great Romeo and Juliet-style legend of doomed lovers. It’s packed with lovely performances, passion, sweeping sentiment, great, fierce battles, marvellous sets and superb images thanks to cinematographer Arthur Reinhart, and is graced with a beautiful original score by Anne Dudley.

Superman in the 2013 Man of Steel, Henry Cavill, has an early role as Marke’s nephew and Tristan’s old friend Melot.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1431

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