The Long and Short of It: 'The English Patient'

Illustration by Jenn Marie Harmeson In "The Long and Short of It" series, Sam Watermeier writes concise reviews of long epics he's been putting off watching for years. These are the movies that came in bulky two-tape boxes back when VHS was all the rage. This bi-weekly series isn't about watching Sam torture himself; it's about watching him experience long-beloved films for the first time.

The opening shot of 1996's "The English Patient" takes your breath away, smacking of the same majestic imagery in such David Lean epics as "Lawrence of Arabia" and "A Passage to India."

A pre-war biplane soars over the wind-sculpted sand mountains of the Sahara Desert. A beautiful woman sits in front of the pilot, and her sunny blonde hair blows in the breeze. Right when this romantic image starts to hypnotize us, the plane is shot down, leaving the pilot horribly burned.

This is our introduction to the titular character, who is actually a Hungarian cartographer named László de Almásy (Ralph Fiennes). We learn his backstory through his interactions with a military nurse named Hana (Juliette Binoche), who cares for him in a dilapidated Italian monastery as World War II comes to a close. Hana devotes herself to him in the hopes of redeeming herself. She feels responsible for the loved ones she lost during the war — as though she carries a curse. The ghosts of the war constantly loom over her head.

László bears a similar burden, clasping to the memory of the soulmate he found in the desert. Through flashbacks, we discover that he met this woman, Katharine Clifton (Kristin Scott Thomas), while she was on an expedition in Libya with her husband (Colin Firth). She and László have a fiery affair that ends in tragedy.

Binoche anchors this bloated, convoluted film. While László and Katharine's sweeping romance rushes into melodrama and too many other conflicted characters come out of the woodwork, Hana keeps the story grounded. The theme of love and loss comes across most clearly through her eyes. We feel the weight of her grief, the heft of her history with the loved ones she lost in battle. When Hana falls for a member of a bomb disposal team, Binoche makes her fear and frustration our own. And her "curse" becomes achingly real to us.

The love between László and Katharine feels more superficial — like the kind of Old Hollywood romance that scratches only the surface of the lovers' emotions. Yes, they survive a sandstorm together, and Katharine is disappointed with her husband. But these reasons for their bond seem too skin-deep to stir up a truly ravishing romance. Perhaps this thin, old-fashioned love story would be more effective if it stood on its own instead of awkwardly trying to coexist with Hana's harsh and haunting reality. Writer-director Anthony Minghella dealt with this kind of dichotomy more gracefully later in his career.

The winner of nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Director, "The English Patient" is certainly an ambitious and admirable epic. But its attempt to feel like an old classic clashes with the more contemporary grit at the dark heart of the story, which lies buried under Oscar-bait grandeur.