Casanova

Aroview: A lavish, middle-brow account of the infamous 18th century Italian lover, played here with deadpan wit by Heath Ledger, which weaves its own web of speculative motivations for the enigmatic individual as he falls into a complicated case of convent seductions, feminist politics, religious intrigue (cue the Inquisition) and mistaken identities.

Unlike Federico Fellini's darkly corrupted vision of Venice, dir. Hallstrom sketches a far lighter and more obviously farcical set of comic situations, as Ledger ultimately searches for marital stability and becomes paradoxically besotted with a reformist writer (Miller) who despises him. Hardly bawdy, this has a certain unexpected freshness which compensates for the rather chaste treatment.

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