This was a terrible movie. A hilariously, ridiculously terrible movie. It was like watching three seasons of a bad prime-time soap opera crammed into 103 minutes. I laughed several times, but never in ways the filmmakers would have wanted.
Nothing in the film feels genuine. Character motivations are clichéd. Plot twists can be seen coming from miles away. They aren't even really twists, not when we've seen them done many times before.
My earlier comparison is what I just can't get over regarding this film. It really does feel like someone has edited the "greatest hits" from a television soap opera into a movie. On television, though, the story (while still bad) would have had time to breathe. Instead, the film rushes from one overly dramatic cliché to the next. It's almost exhilarating in its badness. Still, one gets the impression that the actors and filmmakers were trying to make a good film. If they had actually recognized how bad the film was going to be and embraced it, we could have had a new classic on our hands--the worst (or best) so bad it's good movie ever. As is, it's still a contender.
I was looking forward to this movie based on its trailer. It didn't manage to live up to my expectations--I would probably rate it about a 'C'. Had it been edited differently, however, I think it could have been a solid 'B'.
The film seemed, in previews, to be a mostly simple love story, but with a bit of a fantastical element to it (after all, it somehow spans roughly a century). In reality, the movie is much more complicated, unnecessarily so. It involved demons, and angels, and attempts by the former to prevent miracles from taking place. If the movie wanted to allude to some of this, that would be fine, but it is much too "in your face" with it all. A wise, magical horse showing up to help the main character is okay. Learning that it is literally a guardian angel takes away any sense of whimsy or mystery.
This lack of mystery is my main issue with the film's editing. With the exception of the very beginning, the film mostly takes place in sequence, first in the early 1900s, then, after a time jump, in the present day. I think that these two sequences should have been intercut. In the beginning of the present day sequence, Colin Farrell's character is even suffering from amnesia. That's the perfect place for the movie to begin. It would be a more effective way of drawing the viewer in. We would be going on a journey of discovery with the character instead of, two-thirds through the film, waiting for him to remember what we already know. There are a few places during the modern day scenes that would have made for good moments to put in lengthy flashbacks. By showing the story's events in chronological order, the film feels less like a unified whole. Instead, it feels like two distinct sections, neither with a great payoff. I still don't think "Winter's Tale" would have been a great movie if it had been more skillfully edited, but it could have been a good one.
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