Film Reviews

Casanova

• Rating:
• Director: Lasse Hallstrom
• Starring: Heath Ledger
• Details: UK, 112mins, 12s.

The women of eighteenth-century Venice are falling under the spell cast by legendary lover Casanova (Ledger), whose debauchery knows no bounds as he plucks the virtue of even the most righteous of maidens. Fed up with the caddish rogue, the Doge (Tom McInnerny) threatens him with expulsion if he doesn't pick a wife and settle down. With many a woman ready to take his hand, Casanova sets his sights on feisty proto-feminist Francesca (Miller), even though she is engaged to a Genoan merchant (Platt). Assuming the merchant's identity, Casanova woos Francesca - but with the Cardinal (Irons) threatening to try him for heresy, the courtship doesn't go according to plan.
With tongue firmly in cheek (and other places), Casanova is a delightful swashbuckling screwball-esque comedy with more quips than you can poke sword at, and is the slapstick side of the same bed inhabited by Johnny Depp's The Libertine. Ledger, after his sombre Oscar-nominated role in Brokeback Mountain, delights in his first real comedic turn as the infamous bounder and his sharp repartee with his long-suffering servant (the brilliant Omid Djalili) is on the money. Ledger's co-star Miller does more than just hang around for the wooing to commence as she takes centre stage more often than not; her Francesca is not another angry woman who hates herself for succumbing to the debaucher's advances. Meanwhile, Irons and Platt are more than just comic foils. Great lines abound - "Eternal damnation for one night with Casanova", to which the reply is, "Seems fair"

Review by Gavin Burke