Adapting a well-loved book for the screen is always a risky proposition. Elements that work on the page will not work visually and vice versa. Compromises must be made. You cannot please everyone. But the film version of "Winter's Tale" probably won't please anyone: neither fans of the book nor those who have never read it. It lacks visual splendor (except for one or two scenes). It lacks emotional depth. It lacks scope and magic.
It is clear that there is some big battle going on between Good and Evil and that Will Smith is somehow involved, but none of it makes any sense. The philosophical underpinnings of the novel, its thoughts on the turning of the centuries (and the millennium), and how cultures and societies go through giant upheaval during such moments, visible, and invisible, is completely lost in the New Age-y dreck drenching the narrative. Not even Colin Farrell as the thief Peter Lake can save it, and he is doing his level best, with an urgent, heartfelt performance. Mark Helprin's 1983 novel is one of the most poetic of the late 20th century, and yet this film version has no poetry whatsoever.
