I’ve received some emails about Roger Ebert’s positive review for ‘Tristan & Isolde’. Read it here. An excerpt:
The movie is better than the commercials would lead you to believe — and better, perhaps, than the studio expected, which may be why it was on the shelf for more than a year. Sophia Myles plays Isolde as the daughter of a king, raised by the king’s rules, true to her own emotions but true, too, to her duty. She doesn’t mistake Isolde for the heroine of a teenage romance.
One of the people mentioning this to me was Heinrich who is full of praise for the movie. Read his review at the Judgment Of Paris Forum. He also singles out Sophia Myles for praise:
But by far the most remarkable element in this film is the breathtaking actress Sophia Myles, who–in the role of a lifetime–plays “the fair Isolde” so perfectly that she seems to have been born for the part. The acting is generally quite strong, and admirably subtle. Once again, Sophia Myles provides the standout performance, by creating a character who has tremendous depth of feeling, and is profoundly feminine as well. Sophia’s Isolde exudes passion and ardour, along with irresistible vulnerability, and, most captivating of all, a helplessness before her own desires. Myles presents Isolde struggling to keep her surging emotions in check, creating a tension in the character that involves the audience at the deepest level. In fact, Myles’s Isolde may well be the most archetypally feminine performance that the cinema has ever seen.
And the box office results are out, ‘Tristan & Isolde‘ opened in eighth place:
“The fourth new entry over the weekend, Tristan & Isolde, failed to woo many moviegoers, opening in eighth place with $7.8 million over the four-day holiday. Fox’s PG-13 romantic costume drama, starring James Franco and Sophia Myles, averaged $4,255 at 1,845 locations. The studio claimed the numbers tracked close to expectations, with exec Chris Aronson suggesting that exit polling indicated the largely female audience would “definitely recommend” the film to friends and that might lead the flick to “catch hold” and stick around for several weeks.”
Lastly, the estimated DVD release is June 2006.