Thanks again.

I didn't care for the Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas characters. I don't find a married woman cheating on her husband to be very romantic. Juliette Binoche and the Indian soldier's love story was more romantic to me and kept me from outright hating this movie. It was very beautifully filmed, but definitely not oscar worthy.

I liked the movie, especially any scene with Juliette Binoche in it (particularly the scene where she is bouncing on a rope with a torch, part of the love story of her with the Indian soldier).

Of course, I only watched it once, and that was a long time ago. I have no real desire to see it again, though it's worth watching at least once.

I've been known to enter a many English Patient debate, but I'll refrain from reprising all of my complaints...

As it has been said, I couldn't care about these characters... the only one I had the slightest bit of interest in was J. Binoche's nurse... and by that time, my opinion had already been formed. While beautiful, the exquisite cinematography can only play a small role when you don't care about the foreground action.

The argument against me is always "...but it was so romantic..." For many people, when I try to explain that when you feel the characters are disingenous and unlikable, it's very hard to care about their romance, it never seems to be an adequate explanation.

People dislike Magnolia because they don't care about the characters - they're not good people. While this is true, I found the characters in Magnolia to be inherently fascinating. They were never portrayed to be anything but (to simplify) bad people. We weren't supposed to like them... we were supposed to be intrigued by them. EP wanted us to care... and I simply didn't...

...but there just seems to be something about Minghella's direction that rubs me the wrong way. Many aspects of The Talented Mr. Ripley impressed me (character development, cinematography and script included), but I ultimately wanted the movie to end very badly. By midpoint, I had simply had enough.

...and while I didn't laugh, I definitely thought of Mr. Gill Man during those scenes in The English Patient.

HAHAHAHA! Couldn't have said it better myself. Summed up perfectly why I HATED this movie.