Casanova (2005) short review

Heath Ledger stars as Casanova with Sienna Miller as the true love to whom he has to prove himself.  Meh.  It was mildly entertaining, but not overwhelmingly so.  Heath was relatively good as the charming version of Casanova (when they let him be), but this movie suffers from my issue with all Casanova adaptations:  what is interesting about Casanova is in fact the fact that he’s a seducer and a rake!  Even the BBC version suffered from this problem, altho not as much as this feature:  we aren’t paying our $10 to see Casanova learn about true love and try to prove that he can be constant!  We’re paying to see Casanova BE Casanova!  Anyway.  Sienna Miller is miscast in this, as she’s just not a period actress (she reads too modern) and her brown wigs were DOWDY.  There was a cute subplot with Lena Olin as Miller’s mom which I won’t give away.  Worth a watch, but doesn’t bear repeating.  The costumes were very middling — no sack back gowns to be seen at all, Miller and Olin in bad wigs (Olin’s was SHINY PLASTICY platinum blond!), really nothing I went “oooo!” at.

Tags

About the author

Kendra

Website

Kendra has been a fixture in the online costuming world since the late 1990s. Her website, Démodé Couture, is one of the most well-known online resources for historical costumers. In the summer of 2014, she published a book on 18th-century wig and hair styling. Kendra is a librarian at a university, specializing in history and fashion. She’s also an academic, with several articles on fashion history published in research journals.

Feel the love

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.