Tulip Fever is a Baffling, Incoherent Mess About Tulips (Apparently) and Faking Your Death (TWICE)
In the first 20 minutes of Tulip Fever, a sex scene involving Cornelis Sandvoort (Christoph Waltz) and his bethrothed wife, Sophia Sandvoort (Alicia Vikander) sets the stage for the rest of the film — a bafflingly horrible mess that completely deserves the 10% on Rotten Tomatoes. When Christoph Waltz calls his penis his “little soldier”, I knew there was something wrong with this picture, but not until Waltz proudly moans “Fire the cannons!” The movie [really] goes downhill from there.
I’ll say this, the film looks fantastic (beautiful cinematography from Eigil Bryld and great production design that sets the period of 1600s Amsterdam) and the score by Danny Elfman is probably one of his most underappreciated (probably because the film itself sucks). The rest of the movie is so fucked-up and so out-there that you can’t believe that this is an actual movie. Résumé: Sophia falls in love with a painter (Dane DeHaan) and must figure out a way to escape her husband. Luckily for her, their maid (Holliday Grainger) is expecting a child. And so she has this wonderful idea to escape the clutches of her husband by pretending to be pregnant (oh jesus) and then fake her death when the child is born. Lol what if Grainger died for real? Isn’t that something to consider? Oh well. She does that, and it works. So she’s off with DeHaan? Or not? I guess not, because DeHaan wanted to sell a tulip (?) and his bumbling assistant (Zach Galifianakis in the worst performance of his entire career) ate the bloom? Is that it? So, Sophia fakes her death AGAIN and goes to a convent?
The editing is all over the place, yet nothing is explained that you can’t comprehend exactly what is going on and/or taking place in this film. You understand bits, but because nothing is explained (even with an absolutely pointless voice-over that adds NOTHING from Holliday Grainger), you lose complete interest in the movie and become thinking about how amazing The Mandalorian’s latest episode was. Yes, the cast is star-studded, but they embarass themselves in a bad script and a non-existent plot that none of the performances are remotely good. It’s a shame with all the talent in front (and behind) the camera that Tulip Fever amounts to absolutely nothing. Many actors actually DO nothing. There was no reason to cast Cara Delevingne in this, because they keep cutting away from her when she’s on screen and does absolutely nothing. There’s this whole elaborate subplot (there’s like 100 subplots in this) about tulip trading? Judi Dench tries to explain why tulips are important, but I honestly couldn’t care any less. It’s a shame when DAME Judi Dench can’t even make me interested in watching the film that all hope is lost. I couldn’t understand a single thing that was going on with Dane DeHaan’s quest to make money with a tulip that Galifinakis ends up eating that I gave up.
And that’s what you’ll do while watching Tulip Fever — give up. You’ll try to get invested, because of the quality of the actors, but the script keeps slapping you in the face that it becomes impossible for you to enjoy it or get invested in it. It’s 95% awkward as hell sex scenes, cross-cutted with random-ass footage of people doing whatever, until a sudden “forbidden love plot” comes out of fucking nowhere. Even if I liked the film’s visual style and wonderful score, there isn’t anything remotely going for in this movie that I won’t even recommend the curious ones to see it. It’s a baffling product that needs to be locked up, like Harvey Weinstein.
✯
