PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Cooktopi The acting in this movie is really good.

Arianna Moses Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

SimonJack Some of those who have commented on "Fortunes of War," have mentioned a 3-hour movie. I just watched a DVD of the 7-part BBC TV mini-series. It runs a little more than 6 ½ hours. At the time of this review, only eight others had reviewed the film, and only 380 had rated it. The high rating (8.1 at this time), means to me that it must rank up there with great works put on film by such English authors as Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Emily Bronte or George Eliot. But such clearly is not the case.I enjoy most of the pre-war British movies that I have seen. Various films give one a sense of history of the time in the decade leading up to WWII. A number of very good movies give a picture of the life among the civilians in England and elsewhere, especially in the last few years before war and then in the outbreak of war in Europe. We hear and see the concerns and worries, uncertainty from news reports, fear for loved ones, hope against despair, and British resolve. So, I was anticipating something along those lines in "Fortunes of War." But, we don't get much of that. Instead we are taken along the "adventures" of a recently married English couple in their moves to three locations in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. They are civilians, associated with an institute that teaches English language and culture in other countries. The series/film is based on six novels of fiction by Olivia Manning, who used her travel and living experiences with her husband who worked for the BBC. I'm not familiar with Manning's works, so I don't know how true to the books the mini-series is. But the film series has only smatterings of war engagements, one of which spends time with a young British soldier who is wounded in Egypt. And, otherwise, there seems to be a mix of concern about war or Nazi Germany among the characters. The film gives far too much time to frivolous matters and somewhat to characters whose parts are frivolous as well. We don't see much depth of character development of these people. These give way invariably to a local adventure for the heroine or a task for the hero. So, we get doses as well of scenery, monuments and antiquity in Greece and Egypt. Interwoven with these, are the personal stories – but just superficially for most of the characters. Not all, but most. The series has all the trappings of a soap opera. Indeed, the description of Manning's first three novels in an Encyclopedia Britannica article reads like the formula outline for a "soaper." Then, toss in considerable doses of travelogue, with an occasional accident or mishap, and you have a film that's a hodgepodge. I give "Fortunes" six stars for the good scenery shots and for the good acting by the entire cast. Ronald Pickup and Diana Hardcastle give top performances. But, the poor script has just an occasional shot of quality. So, the acting and scenery can't lift the listless plot above the level of a good soap opera. "Fortunes of War" can be entertaining, in small doses at a time. But only if one doesn't mind a mixed bag of soap opera and travelogue, with fantasy characters and a very slow script. It can't possibly stand up to the great books put on film from Dickens, Austen, Bronte or the likes.

churwinj The three points are for the splendid production values. I have not read the novels but offer this point of view based solely on the TV series. Well acted by all means, but Fortunes of War is ultimately tedious and horrendously disjointed. It is like watching a Play for Today that goes on and on and on. While Plater's terse and character-obsessed style no doubt works for short TV drama and the stage, it is out of place in a lavish and lengthy production such as this. In the end there was no plot to speak of. I kept waiting for something to happen, but it never did. I kept waiting for some drama, some explosion of conflict between the seemingly endless numbers of characters but again there was nothing. Yes, we had a snapshot of Europe on the brink of war, of the British ex-pat community at play, desperately trying to ignore the gathering storm and looking to their own self interest. But so what? This theme has been done to death. The characters were quirky in some cases (and then only in an irritating way) but mostly they were extremely dull. I was unable to care about any of them. We are told that the story is about the break up of the Pringle marriage as it faces the stresses and strains of impending war. But the impending war never seemed to really threaten and the British ex-pats seemed almost unconcerned about it. The Thompson- Branagh relationship- if relationship is the right word- lacked any passion and from the start they seemed to be two dull people ideally suited to each other. There was never ever a 'relationship' to break up and so when it 'started' I really didn't feel anything at all. Branagh's character was the most disappointing, almost soporifically so. We are told he was a communist, feverishly against war, yet he expresses little outrage at the collapse of civilization (apart from the odd and very unconvincing 'war is an outrage' uttered over yet another glass of wine). Not such an outrage that it should interrupt his frankly absurd obsession with Shakespeare et al at a time when everything Shakespeare stood for was crashing down on his head. All the characters seemed to be thoroughly amoral. The only one I frankly cared for was the old man and the toy dog he dragged around. In the end that summed up this failed production for me. Nothing but a drag.

citizenbeta A big novel's length is always a challenge to a film adaptation of the work. When six novels are involved, as is the case here (from Olivia Manning's The Balkan Trilogy and The Levant Trilogy), the task of adapting the work means most of it gets left behind. How to produce a script that retains some of the novel's uniqueness and flavor but is still coherent to viewers unfamiliar with the novel? Various solutions come to mind. For example, Volker Schlöndorff wisely bit off only the first third of Günter Grass's masterpiece, The Tin Drum, and created a film that at times exceeds its source material in power and impact. And against all odds, the young Ray Bradbury managed to extract key scenes and language from Moby Dick to come up with a script which, when coupled with a decent director (John Huston) and good casting choices (I'm thinking here of Orson Welles as Father Mapple), made a pretty decent movie.Sadly, with Fortunes of War, casting works against the film. Where Guy Pringle is a big bear of a man in the novels, Branagh's sensitive Guy just isn't the same character. And where Harriet Pringle is a small and at times frail woman in the novels, Thompson's Harriet is, well, Emma Thompson. This is not a small matter. The novels' point of view is that of Harriet and what we get there is a detailed, personal, even intimate view of the Pringles' marriage. If you read these novels all in a rush, you almost become Harriet Pringle for a time, immersed in the details of her marriage, seeing the world through her eyes. There's a toughness to Harriet, but also vulnerability, something that Guy often misses as he plunges into one project after another. Little of this comes through in the film.Of course something will get lost in the translation from the literary to the filmic – this is a challenge all film adaptations have to face. But in this film, the mismatch of the lead actors and the characters they play is simply too much to overcome.

Masmi I've watched this 3 hrs+ movie a dozen of times already, and I am sill thirsty for more. This movie is packed with beautiful acting by nearly all casts. These English actors seem to know how to control their facial expressions, vocal tones, body movement with remarkable precision to convey all degrees of emotions and personalities. Directing, music, costume, editing, cinematography are all equally good as well, and together with the great actings, creates a beautiful harmony. This movie is made of one piece. Like "Lawrence of Arabia", whereever we slice it, the piece has a harmony, like the music by great composers.If I have to live in a desert island and can bring one video with me, I guess I'll choose this one.