This film sets out to be a love story set against the 'tulipmania' of 17th century Netherlands. The basic plot (woman sold into arranged marriage, has affair with artist hired to do portrait) is hardly original, and the mainspring of the action involving a baby is scarcely credible. There are lots of scenes of tulip selling but the mechanics are not well explained and the result is often confusing. But perhaps the worst part of the film is that none of the characters, except perhaps Judi Dench's acerbic abbess, seem to be real three dimensional people. The end is very predictable. The period settings, which concentrate on the contrast between private comfort and public squalor, are okay. The film was apparently mangled by the studio after it was made, but would perhaps have been best not started at all.
Review of Tulip Fever
