The writer of acclaimed Kiwi novel The Vintner's Luck says she "cried for days" after seeing director Niki Caro's film version had removed the gay relationship between two central characters. Gaspard Ulliel as Xas the Angel in The Vintner's Luck The book by Elizabeth Knox featured intimate gay scenes between a winemaker and an angel, which GayNZ.com understands were filmed but not included in the finished film. "The film doesn't do the gay romance. It has a vague gay flirtation that amounts to nothing and it has quite a lot of heterosexual sex in it," Knox has told the Dominion Post. "She took out what the book was actually about, and I was deeply surprised and deeply puzzled by it, because I don't know why she did it." Knox contacted Caro, pointing out the film's "betrayal" of the characters' relationship. Caro's polite response was a "cop-out," the author claims. CRITICAL PANNING The Vintner's Luck film has not been well-received at overseas film festivals. It has been panned by various critics who believe it's unlikely to get mainstream attention internationally. Variety magazine reviewer Justin Chang wrote that "Caro never finds the emotional pulse of the story." When the film debuted at the Toronto Film Festival, even its downplayed scenes between the male pair were too much for the critics, noted the NZ Herald: "the heavenly glow of its red carpet launch was swiftly overshadowed by poor reviews from influential US film critics unable to get their heads around the white-winged creature and his homosexual affair with the vintner, and lambasting the epic storyline as 'shambolic'." The movie, which is currently showing in cinemas around New Zealand, has had mixed reviews locally. The Dominion Post's Graeme Tuckett thought readers of the popular book might wonder why Caro left so much of the plot out. "The book's themes, its ideas, its ambitions, its madnesses, murders, and eroticism, not to mention half its plot, have all been chucked in the 'too difficult' basket and left out. And what is left over is not only nonsensical, it is bloody tedious." FILM-GOERS REACT Reader comments about the Dom Post's review of The Vintner's Luck also express disappointment with the film. "To hear that Caro has wimped out on the emotional complexity of an angel falling for a human is really disappointing," wrote 'Kay'. "It would be like filming Brokeback Mountain with the 'cowboys' just as buddies. What a waste!" Another reader agreed: "It's sad to see a story so great be sanitised to fit middle America. Caro could have had a cult film with a huge following which then could have inspired Elizabeth Knox to write more stories based on some of these characters. Instead Knox is probably reeling at her desk wondering why she gave the film rights to Caro."
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News Staff
First published: Thursday, 19th November 2009 - 8:28am