Adapting a novel into a Hollywood film is never easy. Movie fans who haven’t read the book in question may be easier to please with such a film, but die-hard readers are far more difficult to satisfy. That's the case with Love in the Time of Cholera, a weighty 1985 novel of love and loss by Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez.

The movie opens in Cartageña, Columbia as a young boy, Florentino Ariza (Unax Ulgade -- played as an adult by Javier Bardem), spots the young girl Fermina Daza (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) and falls hopelessly in love at first sight. The two begin sharing secret notes until Fermina comes of age to marry. Florentino  approaches her father (John Leguizamo), a rising and coarse businessman, who wants more for his daughter than to marry a common clerk and poet. Naturally, he refuses Florentino's request to court Fermina. .

Even though her father takes Fermina far away, she and Florentino manage to exchange love letters in the beginning. Absence, in this situation, does not make Fermina's heart grow fonder, and when she's introduced to Dr. Juvenal Urbino (Benjamin Bratt) she accepts his proposal. The doctor, a specialist in cholera, whisks Fermina off to Paris

While Fermina moves on with her life, Florentino cannot accept the fact that he lost the love of his life. He goes through the motions, in fact he becomes consumed with sex when a woman literally pulls him into her dark apartment and seduces him. Florentino loves the thought and feel of a woman so much be begins to keep a diary of his conquests. Each time he makes a new entry adds another amusing moment to the film, even after he reaches # 600.

Florentino’s poems and descriptions of each conquest are  so exquisite he begins to earn money writing other people's love letters. We hear only snippets of these beautiful words in the movie; and if they are more detailed in the book, I'd certainly be enticed to read it. It's these words combined with the lovely cinematography by Alfonso Beato (The Queen) that heighten the romantic appeal of the story.

Most of the performances are mediocre. Actors Hector Elizondo (Pretty Woman), Liev Schreiber (The Omen) and John Leguizamo (Moulin Rouge) all have minor roles. Although Mezzogiorno is fine in her role as Fermina, especially in the character's latter years, she's a relatively unknown actress to American audiences. 

Two actors do stand out: Bardem and Fernanda Montenegro. Bardem (The Sea Inside) brings rich warmth to his character, an idiosyncratic yet sympathetic man who wears his heart on his sleeve and courageously tucks each disappointment under a cuff as he continues to pursue his dream.  I enjoyed Bardem so much more in this film than as the serial killer in the dreadful No Country for Old Men.

After learning he acquired the role in Love in the Time of Cholera, Bardem began the daunting task of finding his way into the character of Florentino Ariza, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him earn another Oscar nomination (Before Night Falls) for his efforts. “The responsibility and challenge is huge because you have to play from 24 until 74 years old. And a movie like this is so complex and so full of detail; you really have to give everything. You cannot hold anything back for yourself.”

Brazilian stage star Fernanda Montenegro (The House of Sand) is exceptional as Florentino’s hand-wringing single mother, infusing this character with every emotion that any mother in her position would feel --  worry, anxiety, pride, fear and undying love.  

As one of the film's producers noted, adapting a novel that deals mostly with characters whose journeys are internal was no easy feat. And a few things did bother me here. The film is a tad too long; the aging of Florentino and Fermina seems uneven at times; and some situations come and go with no explanation. For example, one minute Fermina and Juvenal have one baby, then children we never saw before appear in a later scene.

Still, I think screenwriter Ronald Harwood (Being Julia), director Mike Newell (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), and composer Antonio Pinto -- whose brilliant score accentuates the movie’s romantic emotion --  all succeed in making Love in the Time of Cholera heartfelt, amusing, pleasurable, and quite memorable.  

(Released by New Line Cinema and rated "R" for sexual content/nudity and brief language.)

Review also posted on www.reviewexpress.com.