1600's Amsterdam is beautifully represented with a fanatical attention to detail and costume. It is the time of the tulip bulb "epidemic" and fortunes are being mostly made on the various exchanges. Life is still difficult for those without resources such as Vikander, an orphan now grown into a delectable young woman. Dench (Abbess) arranges a good marriage for her to a very successful spice merchant a good bit older, Waltz. With reluctance, she enters into the arrangement and after three years there is no son which Waltz wants for heirs.
Waltz, something of a braggart, wants a portrait of him and his rather hot wife for posterity. He finds a good (and still affordable) portrait artist in the form of DeHaan. Once he comes to begin his art sparks begin to fly and it doesn't take long until Waltz becomes King Cuck.
The story is multifaceted by presenting two love stories against the background of Tulip Fever. It becomes a bit jumbled trying to pay lip service to the tulip rage and balance the intricacies of two romances going wrong. Then, bending to humor, Galifianakis does a bit as DeHaan's buddy who makes big mistakes.
Note: Tom Hollander plays the questionable Dr. Zorg in a very humorous way. To me, he was the brief highlight of the film.
The interior lighting was Old Master's yet it ultimately did not fit the light-weight elements that quickly drag down the whole story. If the story had been tightened up a bit this could have been a killer.
The squeeze will like it but you would be better off waiting for cable.
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Topic - 'Tulip Fever': Art betrayed by story . . . - Billy Wonka 14:47:01 09/01/17 (0)