Swept Away
Year: 2002
Written and Directed: Guy Ritchie
Based on the screenplay by Lina Wertmuller
Starring: Madonna, Adriano Giannini, and Bruce Greenwood
Details: 89 mins / Screen Gems / Rated R
Swept Away has been called 2002′s shittiest film. It’s the story of a rich, arrogant woman who gets swept away to an island with a gruff Italian fisherman. There, they fight and wait for it… and they fall in love. It’s a remake of the 1975 Italian film of the same name, with some huge changes. The original was filled with complex moral issues and questioned the nature of love. This movie abandons all that for a simplistic romantic plot with only a few hints of the complexity.
Swept Away is a film that fails on nearly every level. It’s too hateful and shoddily created to be a romance. It’s too light to be a drama. Even Ritchie’s overly slick commercial style isn’t fun with the boring landscapes and settings presented here. He’s a director so fond of slick camera moves that they always overshadow the material. Couple that with his headache inducing cutting and POV shots and not only does Swept Away make you long for the ending, but it gets you there with a pain in noggin. Not to mention that the film has more montages than VH1′s Behind the Music. Ritchie really needs to up his game.
Madonna starts overacting from the word go. Ok, she’s a bitch. We get it. She does even out later in the movie, but by that time you don’t care what happens to her. You don’t care if she and her little Italian friend live or die.