Customer Reviews

Ethan Frome

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If you love Romance, you simply must have this video! Yes, Ethan and Mattie are what we call "star crossed lovers" in a way, so all the more reason why their courtship escalates so far beyond the mundane.

I promise you this: there are at least two love scenes in this film that are so amorous and seductive that you will most certainly rewind the tape just to reassure yourself that it was accomplished completely without nudity.

Liam Neeson (Ethan) is at his expected best, portraying a character who is astonishingly sexy and lovable regardless of his physical deformity or intensely tragic circumstances. And Patricia Arquette (Mattie) exquisitely personifies a beautiful and kind young woman approaching her first peak of sexuality.

All of the actors are wonderful and the film follows the book very closely. Buy the video, read the book, and then if you are a true Romantic you will watch the video again and again.

Do read the previous reviews from other customers, I enjoyed reading all of them.

CAUTION: SPOILER ALERT!

Ethan Frome is the most poignant, beautiful, tragic story I've ever read, and is by far Edith Wharton's best work. Yet somehow, despite the fact that Liam Neeson plays the title role and does very well, the filmmakers managed to do a poor job conveying this story.

The decision to replace the book's level-headed, sympathetic introducer of the story with a whiny-voiced, invasive preacher was ridiculous. Patricia Arquette's rendition of Mattie Silver(my favorite female character of all time!!) was completely wrong, although she did have a few good moments. Arquette didn't have the dark hair or the luminous beauty of Mattie, and her acting did almost no justice whatsoever to Mattie's simple but profound character. The nervous laughing in particular drove me crazy. Mattie needs to be portrayed by someone who can fully express her personality -- so warm, intelligent, and vibrant against the wintry cold setting and Ethan's equally frigid wife, Zeena. Ethan's character also needed further exploring through better dialogue and visual story-telling.

Joan Allen was pitch perfect as Zeena, Ethan's abominable hypochondriac wife. If they ever do another film version of this story, I'd want to bring her back. But again, they needed to play up Zeena's manipulative, vindictive, withholding, and silently watchful side even more than they did in order to increase the tension in the household as Ethan and Mattie become increasingly inseparable.

There are two things that I take the most serious issue with in this film. One -- Mattie and Ethan do NOT have sex in the book. At any time. They kiss, in one of the most sensual moments in all of literature, but they do not have sex, Wharton makes it quite clear. Which is why their story is so pure, so poignant, so frustrated, and so desperate. And in this film, they do sleep together, twice. One of those scenes is an appropriately sensual, tense moment, and the other is very sad and desperate but also very... weird and somewhat disturbing. But my point is that changing a crucial factor of the plotline and character development works against the film -- if they were looking for greater intensity, they actually undercut it. Ethan and Mattie sleeping together, especially with so little on-screen development of their romance, makes their love story look more like a lust story and takes away the gorgeous tension of the book.

Which brings me to number two -- the build-up to the lovers' attempted suicide is the most emotionally intense literature I have ever read. The film needs to make it clear that Ethan and Mattie are blocked at every turn by grinding poverty and social boundaries from being able to escape together. A screen adaptation of this book needs to make their love so palpable, so fathomless, that the audience completely understands that they have no alternative BUT suicide if they want to stay together. And then that scene needs to be tremendous.

There were other things that needed to be made perfectly clear, as well -- especially the state of Mattie's mental and physical condition at the end of the story. This film version doesn't make it clear that she is made a quadraplegic with a completely changed personality through the head trauma she experienced in the accident. That is the most horrible sorrow of the entire book, and it needs to be emphasized in order to show the terribleness of Ethan's suffering.

Finally, this book reads like the most gorgeous cinema you could ever encounter -- and a film version ABSOLUTELY MUST be visually stunning, drawn-out, and poignant with the most sumptuous direction, cast, cinematography, color palette, and music that can be found. And this version just didn't cut it, I'm very sorry to say.

For those of you who read my review on this book, you know that I gave the book 4 stars. Well, Neeson outdid the book! Neeson takes the book a BIG step farther. We see Ethan in his disfigured and isolated state, and then time goes backwards and we see how Ethan went from a somewhat normal state to this tragic and lamentable state. The priest adds a welcome touch of sympathy. The images are outstanding, and the background music flatters the images well. Comic relief moments are inserted in this lamentable tragedy well. One thing I must say about this movie is that even though it does not have lots of action or effects, IT IS NEVER BORING!! Ethan's quarrles with his wife are memorable, and his reluctant affair is unforgettable. There is even a wonderful scene in the middle that foreshadows Ethan's crippled state, the hostility between Ethan's wife and the housekeeper, and the tree that changes everyone's life for the worse. One brief, but vital scene is when Ethan and his wife argue bitterly, and the housekeeper along with one of Ethan's helpers overhear it. The final scene is likely to draw tears even from the most experienced person in drama and tragedy. Neeson deserves much credit for turning a 4 star book into an exquisite masterpiece. With all the movies I have seen, I can not boast of knowing more than 16 exquisite masterpieces, and this is one of them.

Wonderfully acted rendition of this classic American novel.Liam NeesonPatricia Arquette and Joan Allen areexcellent in bringing this tale of truelove and betrayal to life.Rachel Portman's mournful yet beautiful score lends itself to the story as well as thebreathtaking vistas of Kings Mountain inVermont.A must see!

Liam Neeson was wonderful to watch - a tragic love story with great winter scenery and lots of cold breath shots. However, Patricia Arquette was too teenage giggly - not a terrific actress in this film, at least. Still, a great role for Neeson.

This movie is all about the tension of opposites. What you know you should do vs what your heart wants to do. The setting, strong actors, and time period all work together to make a beautiful, but tragic love story come alive. I highly recommend this movie!

Ethan Fromme is a great romance book, however as books to movies go, this is one of the worst. Most of the facts were there, but there were added details, and a few missing things which just destroyed the message portrayed in the book.

In the book, Ethan's crippled condition is only barely highlited, yet in the movie, it is dragged out to almost hillarious proportions. This reduces the novels intended effect on viewers of the movie, as the fact that it is supposed to seem almost a punishment on Ethan is lost almost completely. Zeena, the lifeless doll which we see with a certain sense of dread at her introduction in the novel, is a beautiful young woman when she appears in the movie, with only a little less charm later on, when, in the events of the novel, she is supposed to seem almost like death itself. Zeena in the movie is constantly portrayed as being not as bad as we are led to see in the book, therefore making us care for her and almost wonder why Ethan would want to have an affair when he has such a 'good' wife. Also, the character of Mattie, an innocent, vivacious character in the novel, is portrayed as a flirtatious... and almost instigates the affair more than Ethan. In the novel, Ethan is the one who truely begins everything, secretly longing for her, but never able to express his feelings to her until he fears she will be gone.

All these changes destroy the tone with which the author of the book adressed Ethan, and ruined the message that we were supposed to get out of her work. Instead of feeling for the characters of Ethan and Mattie as the evil Zeena destroys Ethan, we feel a sense of disgust at Mattie and Ethan's affair. While the movie was true to the book in many ways, it was the ways in which it wasn't that make this movie sub-par, and almost disgraceful to the book.

Set in a beautiful place and time, (and with breathtaking scenery) when ladies and gentlemen were "proper," this is a story of forbidden love and unrequitted desire. It's filled with possibilities, hopes, fears and tears. Liam and Patricia are wonderful together. A somewhat quirky yet affecting film.

I have watched this movie a couple of times and LOVE it. You really feel like you are back in time with these characters. A true love story to the end. It's one of those movies that you can't figure out right away. Love the twist at the end.

You won't waste your money here.

If you love a great period love story, then don't let any negative reviews stop you from seeing this terrific movie. The superb acting and beautiful scenery pull you right into the story, and the sexual tension between Laim Neeson and Patricia Arquette is incredibly palpable. It's the kind of movie that you can watch again and again and never get bored. One of my all-time favorites.