Winter's Tale Movie Blurb by Shale February 15, 2014 This movie is based on a 1983 fantasy novel by Mark Helprin. If you read the book, which I have not, I would suggest from what I know from other sources that you do not see this movie or you will be disappointed or even angered. (This is my usual observation that movies and books are not the same medium - you know, apples & oranges). The movie is a fairy tale and involves Lucifer, a demon, a flying horse and time travel. It opens in New York in the present, then jumps to the middle in 1916 where flashbacks take us to the beginning in 1895 at Ellis Island. Easy to get lost in all that, so I will start my blurb wherever I please. A couple of immigrants try to enter the U.S. with their infant son in the late 19th Century but are rejected because the father has "pulmonary" (TB). Rather than take their son back to the old country they set him in a small boat, which is retrieved by homeless men on the shore. They raise Peter Lake (Colin Farrell) who by 1916 becomes an accomplished thief. He has a falling out with his crime boss, Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe) who now wants him dead. Pearly and his gang have Peter surrounded and are about to do him in when this white horse appears and Peter hops on and escapes. Now the white horse is a character in this movie named Athansor (Listo) and is some sort of angel sent to work with Peter. Athansor takes peter to a fine house that appears empty and ripe for robbing and refuses to move until peter goes in. Seems one person is still in the house, 21-year-old Beverly Penn (Jessica Brown Findlay) whose father Isaac Penn (William Hurt) is a rich newspaper publisher. Beverly has the ability to judge character and knows that Peter is harmless. They hit it off instantly and Peter is madly in love. The trouble is, Beverly is dying of consumption (TB). When Pearly who is a demon, finds that Peter is in love with the red-haired girl he tries to abduct her to get him - but Peter on Athansor rescues her and they fly off to the lake house out of Pearly's jurisdiction. Seems Lucifer (Will Smith) has put limits on Pearly, and will not relax them for his personal pursuit. Peter & Beverly Escape on Athansor At the country house, the family embraces Peter even knowing that he is a thief. He has good moments with Beverly, ... Peter & Beverly in the Country ... and even becomes friends with her young sister Willa (Mckayla Twiggs). Willa & Peter Well, that is the set up and you can see the kind of story this is. And, you know that Peter Lake ends up in NYC in 2014. How? IDK, and it isn't made too clear what happened to him in that century, but he is here and so is Pearly. So, the conflict with him has yet to be resolved and now it involves his new friend Virginia (Jennifer Connelly) and her daughter in the 21st Century. Virginia & Peter Meet in Park The critics didn't like this movie much, but I enjoyed it mostly because of the cast. Colin Farrell made me cry when he did on screen. He has such expressive eyes. It is a story hard to follow but eventually it becomes clear and the point that we are all here for a destiny and one person is no more important than another.
