The
boom and bust of the Dutch Tulip market was so dramatic, it became one of the
primary case studies in Charles Mackay's classic (and now more relevant than
ever) Extraordinary Popular Delusions and
the Madness of Crowds. Despite what CBS might think, agitated masses often
display foolish and reckless behavior, such as paying ten times the average
skilled artisan’s wages for a single tulip bulb. Just when the market starts to
look dicey, a pair of lovers hope to flip an exceedingly rare bulb to finance
their happily ever after in Justin Chadwick’s notoriously delayed Tulip Fever (trailer here), which supposedly
finally opens today nationwide.
The
Dutch love their tulips. This was particularly true during the Dutch Golden
Age. Like anything valuable, a commodities market for tulips sprung up, in
which titles to bulb were traded by investors who never touched a spade in
their lives. Old school merchant Cornelis Sandvoort is wise enough to steer
clear of such wild speculation. Instead, his losing investment is his wife
Sophia, whom he more or less purchased from her convent, but has yet to produce
an heir.
In
a cruel twist of fate, the Sandvoort’s housekeeper Maria has fertility to
spare. She learns she is carrying her fishmonger lover’s baby soon after his is
shanghaied by a press gang. Ordinarily, her master would turn out an unmarried pregnant
servant without a second thought, but she has leverage over her mistress. She
threatens to expose Sophia’s affair with sleepy-eyed garret-dwelling portrait
painter Jan Van Loos if she is kicked to the curb. Thus, begins a desperate scheme
to conceal her pregnancy and ultimately facilitate the lovers’ new life
together, which will be financed by an exceedingly rare bulb Van Loos manages
to claim.
Tulip Fever has been postponed
so many times, it has evolved from an industry joke into an urban legend.
Seriously, how hard is it to market a film penned by screenwriter Tom Stoppard,
starring Oscar winners Alicia Vikander, Christoph Waltz, and Dame Judi Dench?
Although some have come to doubt it, the film does indeed exist. It is okay—respectable
but nothing spectacular. Frankly, Suite Française,
which the Weinstein Company shunted off to Lifetime, is a far superior film, but
this is the wrong film to look for logic in its release strategy.
Regardless,
the Fever’s problems are glaringly
obvious, starting first and foremost with the gross miscasting of Dane DeHaan
as Van Loos. DeHaan is simply not a romantic lead—not by the wildest stretch of
the imagination. He is the guy you cast as the nebbish introvert with a facial
tic. Not for one instant can we believe him as Vikander’s lover.
Aside
from looking awkward in her scenes with DeHaan, Vikander is fine as Sandvoort. Arguably,
Waltz tries a little too hard as her fastidious husband, but he has some
surprisingly poignant moments in the third act. However, it is excruciatingly
painful to watch Zach Galifianakis’s shtick as Van Loos’s drunkenly buffoonish
sidekick. Dude, go back to the ferns. However, Tom Hollander darn near rescues
the film singlehandedly with his slyly roguish portrayal of the morally
flexible Dr. Sorgh.
