Remember also the shot where the soldier comes across a field of dead school children? The camera lingers forever on all the dead bodies, pulls back, and then goes into close up of the soldiers face, who, lest we forget how to feel at such a pivotal moment(!) has a single tear streaming down his face. Yuck.

And in the famous long shot, why is he standing in the middle of a movie theater, directly in front of the screen? Does no one want to see the movie here or what?

The other seemingly paradoxical complaint I have about the film is that at 2 hours, it almost seemed too short. The novel is universally loved, and I can see how in a novel lengths time, we could really begin to care about the characters, and understand why their love is so important. But in the film, I feel like the only thing we’re given to go on is a few dramatic close-ups of attractive looking characters, and then we’re expected to just fill in the blanks, perhaps based on our previous experience with romances.

Blueballs? yes. A deep burning desire to keep this young couple who I know next to nothing about together? No.

Oh well. At least the little girl didn’t win an oscar.