It took me four years before I popped the disc into the DVD player. The first time I tried to watch it, I got distracted after the first two minutes and abandoned the attempt. After a month, looking for something to watch on DVD, I chucked Jackie Chan’s Fists of Fury and resolved to watch I Capture the Castle.
I didn’t know the movie starred Bill Nighy. And after staring real hard at the curly-haired redhead and thinking to myself, I know I’ve seen this actress somewhere, I finally figured out that Rose was Rose Byrne (for past discussion on her on this blog, search for the commentary on Damages).
I’m glad I watched the DVD. I was teary-eyed the whole time. For plot summary, check out imdb.
In sum, the movie’s tagline is, “I love, I have loved, I will love.”
The story touches on human reality even if it was set way back when, that I’m sure hopeless romantics who watch it can relate to the feeling of loving someone but not being loved in return, the feeling of denying who one is really in love with in favor of practical considerations, the feeling of being an eternal optimist, and that one should not settle for third best or second best, but one should be THE ONE.
I wish, though, that there was a happy ending for Cassandra. The ending was open-ended between her and Simon, with a someday, maybe. Rose was happy with Neil. And Cassandra turned away the handsome boy who was in love with her because she was in love with Simon.
Personally, I didn’t like Simon. He had no right kissing his sister’s fiancee. He should have already made a choice and stuck to it and not flip-flopped.
P.S. The movie was done by the BBC. Why am I not surprised?
2 Comments
July 26, 2008 at 1:09 am
It’s originally a book. Track it down. Worth it.
July 31, 2008 at 1:05 pm
i love rose byrne!
yeah, the book is very interesting; read it after seeing d movie. its written from the perspective of romola garai’s character. you can see her thoughts about her dad’s strangeness, and about her feelings when he (simon?) kissed her. the book’s ending is also a bit dour, and if u listen to the DVD commentary, they wanted an upbeat ending for the movie…
Its from the same author as 1001 dalmatians.