Tulip Fever (2017)

An artist falls for a young married woman while he's commissioned to paint her portrait during the Tulip mania of seventeenth century Amsterdam.

Director:

Justin Chadwick

Writers:

Deborah Moggach (screenplay by), Tom Stoppard (screenplay by)

Stars:

Alicia Vikander, Dane DeHaan, Jack O'Connell

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Alicia Vikander	...	Sophia Sandvoort
Dane DeHaan	...	Jan van Loos
Jack O'Connell	...	Willem Brok
Holliday Grainger	...	Maria
Tom Hollander	...	Dr Sorgh
Matthew Morrison	...	Mattheus
Kevin McKidd	...	Johan De Bye
Douglas Hodge	...	Nicholas Steen
Joanna Scanlan	...	Mrs Overvalt
Zach Galifianakis	...	Gerrit
Judi Dench	...	Abbess
Christoph Waltz	...	Cornelis Sandvoort
David Harewood	...	Mr Prater
Alexandra Gilbreath	...	Lysbeth
Cara Delevingne	...	Annetje

Storyline

In seventeenth century Amsterdam, an orphaned girl Sophia is forcibly married to a rich and powerful merchant Cornelis Sandvoort - an unhappy "arrangement" that saves her from poverty. After her husband commissions a portrait, she begins a passionate affair with the painter Jan Van Loos, a struggling young artist. Seeking to escape the merchant's ever-reaching grasp, the lovers risk everything and enter the frenzied tulip bulb market, with the hope that the right bulb will make a fortune and buy their freedom.

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Plot Keywords:

painter | marriage | thief | doctor | adultery | 

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Taglines:

Desire. Obsession. Betrayal.

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Genres:

Drama | History | Romance

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for sexual content and nudity

Did You Know?

Trivia

Dame Judi Dench and Christoph Waltz appeared in Spectre (2015).

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Goofs

When Jan is telling the bailiffs "if I was liquid now I'd be a bigger fool than I look," his mouth stops moving well before the dubbed line finishes.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Maria: [narration] Before you were born, Amsterdam was captivated by a flower: the tulip. They came from far away in the East and were so rare and beautiful that people lost their senses in wanting to own them. Rich and poor were spending and borrowing money to join the trade in bulbs, which were going up in price all the time. None more so than the rare striped tulips that were called breakers. A new breaker came from nowhere like an act of God, and it changed people's lives. A white ...

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Connections

Referenced in Midnight Screenings: Tulip Fever (2017)

User Reviews

Pretty but basic historical love story

It's a timeless tale of love and betrayal and people doing shitty things to people who are good to them, based on a 1999's novel by Deborah Moggach who also wrote a screenplay for this.

Once upon a long time ago in Amsterdam: a married woman (Alicia Vikander) begins a passionate affair with an artist (Dane DeHaan) hired to work for her husband (Christoph Waltz).

The lovers gamble on hot market for tulips to get the money for escaping together. Also appearing, Judi Dench, Zach Galifianakis, Jack O'Connell, Holliday Grainger, Tom Hollander, Cara Delevingne and others.

This must be one of the more hated movies of 2017 I've come across: Metacritic score 37 out of 100, Rotten Tomatoes's 8 out of 100.

It's far from disaster but I can't say it's good either. To start with the positive, the movie looks gorgeous, the mid-17th century Amsterdam feels very lively and booming although we don't see much of it, most events take place inside somewhere.

The pictures added here really don't do the movie justice but I didn't find a better selection online. The actors make their best of their material, although the characters are so one-note that only screen veterans in supporting roles (Waltz, Dench, Hollander) manage to give really memorable performances. The young stars (Vikander, DeHaan) do adequate work and they have good enough chemistry to offer some steamy love-making scenes but you can't really compete with Waltz or Dench in terms of range or sheer presence, can you? Based on acting and how the movie looks, the result would deserve a higher score but the storytelling really makes a mess of everything. In 107 minutes, there's so many events and relationships and so little willingness to develop them properly that several major plot points or turns fall entirely flat and lose any believability or dramatic impact. All in all, Tulip Fever" is disappointment. It's certainly watchable if underwhelming but it could have been good. Still, I like both young stars and look forward to seeing them in other, better realised movies. It's also interesting to note that Vikander is the new Lara Croft in Tomb Raider'" reboot coming in March. The project has an unlucky history which is actually a fair bit more interesting than the final movie itself. The shoots were originally planned in 2004, with Jude Law and Keira Knightley as leads and John Madden (Shakespeare in Love") as director. However, the production was halted 12 days before the shooting because of changes in tax rules affecting film production in the UK. Dreamworks had already built a massive set of the Amsterdam canals, and planted 12,000 tulips which were dead-headed. The current production was shot in 2014 but the release was postponed for three years due to negative test screenings.

Details

Official Sites:

Official Facebook Official site [Germany]

Country:

UK USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

1 September 2017 (USA)

Also Known As:

Tulip Fever

Filming Locations:

Norwich Cathedral, Norwich, Norfolk, England, UK

Box Office

Budget:

$25,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$1,158,017, 3 September 2017

Gross USA:

$2,455,635

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$9,204,549

Company Credits

Production Co:

Worldview Entertainment, The Weinstein Company, Ruby Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

105 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1