Thanks for the memories!

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

I found this at my public library on DVD. Day-Lewis is now in his 60s and it has been hinted that he may not make any more movies. So I looked this one up for a feel for his skills 20+ years ago.It is set in the 1870s New York, it has a feel to it much like "The Great Gatsby". It moves deliberately and the focus is more on the characters than the action.Daniel Day-Lewis is attorney Newland Archer, a rather calm and proper person. His young love was Michelle Pfeiffer as Ellen Olenska but they went their separate ways, she married someone else, he remained single.As the story picks up he decides to marry Winona Ryder as May Welland, the cousin of Ellen. This keeps Ellen in the story also and Newland finds that she will be divorcing. This creates conflict in his mind. Should he stay faithful to the woman he married or should he pursue the woman of his dreams?Well made drama and Day-Lewis is of course in top form.

How anyone can sit through this movie is a mystery to me. Edith Wharton's Pulitzer Prize winning novel has been adapted into an Oscar nominated film and I'm baffled on both counts. There is absolutely no chemistry or longing at all anywhere in this story. The screenwriter and director both fail in wrenching from this flat tale any kind of riveting or aching longing or heart. So dull is this tale that the characters don't express how they feel, rather some monotonous voice over must explain it to you. Winona Ryder alone stands out as a character; the only one who pines. She alone sees the deceit in the loved ones around her, and though it breaks her heart, she allows it, knowing that she cannot stop them without destroying the lives of everyone she cares for.Pass, pass, pass on this film. It it so beguilingly boring. 4/10

Wow. Before we begin, I want to take a moment to appreciate just how baffled I am by the amount of people writing reviews while using any 4-syllable word just to sound ''refined'', high class and/or intellectuals. Well, I guess that by today's standards, anyone who uses more than three syllables in a single word is considered to be a professor. I'm really laughing my ass off as I write this. Wow.*AHEM* LET'S GET STARTED, LADIES AND GENTS!First of all, I've got to make it clear that this movie is devoid of any type of gunfight, blood or whatever. Do NOT expect action out of this film. What Mr. Scorsese shows us here is... you guessed it, a love story. Man, do I hate love stories. But not this one. This movie is, to me at least, art. I don't think I can explain enough without spoiling things here and there, so let's just talk about the basic stuff. *1.ACTING-* Superb. Daniel Day Lewis really delivers, as expected. Oh and did I mention that I love Michelle Pfeiffer's acting as well? No? Well I do. *2. CINEMATOGRAPHY-* Excellent! The way the camera just ''strolls'' slowly through each scene, emphasizing on the characters and the story, just great. Mr. Scorsese, have another cookie. *3. PLOT-* Although it isn't my kind of story, which is a romance story, I think it is a well-made piece of work. It progresses at a pace that it doesn't drag on for too long, nor does it go ''A-OOH OOH GO FAST'' like most speedo apes writing scripts nowadays, which dare I say, end their movies abruptly and leave you cringing in your seat. One more thing I liked is that the mob family in this movie doesn't use violence, as a fellow reviewer (a professor!) mentioned somewhere in this review thread. That's something we don't see in movies often! They instead use little more than smiles, politeness and stuff like that. And that is just impressive.*Overall, I liked it, I recommend it, my actual review is 8.7 stars but whatever, here's a 9.*

You may have to shrug off your disdain for films about the upper crust of society to watch this one. If you can do that, and if you can patiently allow the story to unfold, you will be rewarded. Director Martin Scorsese is true to Wharton's brilliant novel, and was painstaking in his attention to all of the little details of the time period. The narration by Joanne Woodward is excellent. The forbidden love Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis) has for Countess Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer) while being engaged to May Welland (Winona Ryder) grows ever so gradually, until it becomes a raging fire. At the same time, there is great restraint here, accurate to the morals of the day, but leaving one with a much deeper feeling of the angst involved as a result. The little signals each person in this love triangle send to one another often have great subtlety, yet it feels just as powerful as if they were yelling or screaming.I confess I didn't think any of the three principal actors delivered a great performance – Day-Lewis is a little too morose, Pfeiffer lacks that teeny touch of wickedness, and Ryder's acting is the most suspect, despite her Oscar nomination. The chemistry between Day-Lewis and Pfeiffer does not seem authentic, but with all of that said, each of them is reasonably good. I think Scorsese was dead on with the tone and this is clearly a labor of love, but I don't think the story needed 139 minutes, and there are some issues with pace (which compound the understated action). On the other hand, he gives us some truly wonderful moments, all leading to an ending that is absolutely brilliant, which, just as with the novel, left me with goosebumps.