Tristan & Isolde

Starring James Franco, Sophia Myles, Rufus Sewell and David O'Hara

Written by Dean Georgaris

Directed by Kevin Reynolds

The other Robin Hood was written and directed by a trio of British television veterans. Lacking both Costner’s budget and his delusions of grandeur, this team delivered a film brimming with grit and intelligence, excitement and wry humor, and equal measures of verisimilitude and high adventure. The film’s overriding characteristic was humility— lacking pretensions, the filmmakers cared only to tell the best Robin Hood tale they could within the parameters they were given. Long languishing in obscurity, the film deserves another look— so get it in your Netflix queue immediately.

That Tristan & Isolde is every bit as artistically successful as the British Robin Hood is all the more astounding when you consider that Kevin Reynolds— the director of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves— directed it. Reynolds made his bones in Hollywood as Costner’s manservant, directing his ego-driven pal in Fandango, Waterworld and Robin Hood, and even serving as Costner’s ghost-director/whipping-boy on Dances With Wolves before finally striking out on his own. Escaping Costner’s clutches seems to have liberated the artist in Reynolds; with 2002’s underrated The Count of Monte Cristo and now Tristan & Isolde, he’s revealed himself as a director capable of telling an honest tale with pleasures honestly earned. Given what I expected of this film and what it delivered, I feel like the guy who was looking for a peck on the cheek from his mousy date but who got a surprise blowjob instead.

Set in Cornwall around 600 AD, the film tells the story of Tristan (James Franco), the adopted son and champion of the Cornish Lord Marke (Rufus Sewell). Marke is attempting to unite the warring tribes of Britain against the tyrannical Irish king Donnchadh, who rules Britannia through brute force and deception. When Tristan falls in battle against Donnchadh’s men and is apparently quite dead, Marke has his body put to sea on a funeral barge. But Tristan washes up on shore in Ireland, still very much alive. There, he’s discovered and tended to in secret by Donnchadh’s comely daughter Isolde, who conceals her true identity from Tristan even as they fall in love while having tender, PG-13 sex in flattering soft focus. But can two lovers from opposite sides of the Irish Sea ever find true happiness— especially when their respective regents are at war?

If this story sounds familiar to you, then it should. Tristan & Isolde is one of the oldest legends of Celtic mythology. The tale predates Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, which made Tristan a knight of the Round Table and transferred the love triangle from Tristan, Isolde and Marke to Lancelot, Guinevere and Arthur. Though Shakespeare came by the story of Romeo and Juliet through its Italian sources, his play also owes a debt to the Cornish tale, which is a link in the chain of ill-fated lovers that stretches at least as far back as the Greek legend of Hero and Leander. What makes these stories so durable is the overriding theme of conflict between personal happiness and duty to family, country and king. Is romantic love the absolute ideal that trumps all other concerns? Or is self-sacrifice the ultimate homage to God’s will, if such sacrifice can save a kingdom?

The success of Reynolds’s version of this tale lies in its adherence to these basic themes, which are executed through clean narrative lines that stress the lovers’ moral conflict while allowing the characters to inhabit some semblance of the real world, as it might have existed in the 7th Century. Everything about this picture radiates humility: the production design is rooted in the earth, the cinematography rendered in muted tones, the direction subtle and in service to the story, and the performances heartfelt. There’s enough melodrama to satisfy mainstream audiences, and enough clashing swords and manly feats of manliness to pull it out of chick-flick hell. But it’s also a surprisingly intelligent film infused with something akin to real emotion. And while I’m not convinced that the hangdog expression and faltering British accent that Franco delivers through most of this picture constitutes a real performance, Sophia Miles is something of a revelation— she looks like Kate Winslet’s younger sister, and with the right agent and a little luck, she can have Winslet’s career.

Given Ridley Scott’s long interest in this project and his involvement as executive producer, it’s perhaps not surprising that the picture turned out better than anyone expected. Given Fox’s decision to let the film languish for a year before releasing it in the graveyard of January, you can bet that the studio still doesn’t know what it has. But if you compare this picture to the train-wreck that was Oliver Stone’s much higher-profile Alexander, or to 2004’s laughably misguided King Arthur— which promised historical veracity but delivered Keira Knightley as a bikini-clad warrior Guinevere— then you’d have to call it a minor triumph.

The two 1991 Robin Hoods provide a glaring contrast between ego and humility, between star-driven and story-driven films. Aesthetically, the differences couldn’t be more profound. Still, Costner’s clunker did scare up $165 million domestic gross, which trumps artistic success in Hollywood any day of the week. But Kevin Reynolds, lo and behold, has become something of an artist himself, which is cause for rejoicing. Tristan & Isolde is too subtle and humble a film to do much damage at the box office, so it will probably be forgotten. That’s too bad. We can only hope that its makers have stored up a few pennies in heaven.

January 17, 2006
e-mail mr. fabulous