National Post (National Edition)
Tulip Fever’s embargoing gets ‘the wagging finger of shame’
Three-year-old film doesn’t seem worth fuss
Tulip Fever may well be the film Hollywood doesn’t want you to see.
When news came of a screening for critics this week in Toronto, it was met with an eye roll. After all, last week’s New York press screening had been yanked at the last minute by the Weinstein Company (the studio that owns the picture), prompting one critic there to claim the film didn’t even exist.
Toronto’s screening took place, but with a weird twist; critics had to sign an embargo, promising not to post or print opinions until Friday at 1 p.m.
That means no reviews in Friday’s papers, and no news at all until a half-hour before the first Toronto screening of Tulip Fever at the Varsity. (The only other place to see it in Canada is Vancouver’s Fifth Avenue where, thanks to the time difference, you’ll have a whopping four hours’ notice before it begins.)
Why the cloak of secrecy? The movie seems harmless enough. Based on the novel by Deborah Moggach (she also wrote These Foolish Things, which inspired The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), it’s the story of a 17th-century Dutch painter (Dane DeHaan) in love with a woman (Alicia Vikander) unhappily married to a powerful merchant (Christoph Waltz). The two bet their savings on the tulip bulb market, hoping to strike it rich and run away together.
Tulips and market forces scuttled the film early in its life. In 2004, it was set to shoot in England, with Keira Knightley and Jude Law starring, John Madden directing, and 12,000 tulips in little pots, ready for their close-ups. Then the British government closed a film tax loophole, the budget evaporated, and the film wilted.
Things looked ready to bloom again in the spring of 2013, with a new cast in place and Justin Chadwick in the director’s chair. Filming took place in 2014, and at the 2015 Cannes film festival (where Vikander was a hot property, thanks to rave reviews for the recent sci-fi thriller Ex Machina), Harvey Weinstein promised the film would be opening soon.
November 2015 seemed likely, with a possible Oscar campaign to follow. Then the studio said July 15, 2016. But a week before that date, it pushed Tulip Fever to Feb. 24, 2017. And a week before THAT, another push, to Aug. 25. Now it’s set for Sept. 1. But we’re not allowed to tell you about it.
Studios have many ways to prevent cinemagoers from learning the awful truth about bad movies. Refusing to screen them for the press is a time-honoured method, though it tends to make critics grumpy. The late Roger Ebert, blocked from giving unscreened movies a thumbs up or down, resorted to delivering “the wagging finger of shame.”
But you can almost always find one critic who likes a movie. Sometimes they’re sincere — I quite enjoyed 2011’s Green Lantern, which has a 26 per cent rating at rottentomatoes.com. Occasionally they’re bought — Earl Dittman was probably the most famous “quote whore,” given to adoring any movie that gave him a free trip or access to its stars. And at least one was invented — in 2000, Sony Pictures created a fake critic named David Manning, who (surprise!) loved everything the studio produced.
The embargo is common at film festival time, when studios are eager for critics to see their films, but don’t want reviews to appear until the gala première. With the Toronto International Film Festival opening in a few days, I’ve seen Jake Gyllenhaal in Stronger, Emma Thompson in The Children Act, horror movies The Ritual, Pyewacket and Valley of Shadows, the action flick American Assassin and the Oscar bait Breathe, but I can’t breathe a word about any of them.
But a Friday-afternoon embargo for a three-year-old movie just getting a limited release? It’s unheard of.
It’s also unnecessary. In recent years, many films that studios decided not to screen for the press have received so-so marks when critics caught up with them. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter earned a 35 per cent at rottentomatoes, while Phoenix Forgotten managed 40 per cent, and last week’s All Saints has a stellar 91 per cent.
Reviews for Tulip Fever out of Germany — either there’s no embargo there, or the German critics don’t take orders from anyone — suggest that Tulip Fever is bad, but not Emoji Movie bad. How could it be, when Tom Stoppard worked on the screenplay, and the cast includes Tom Hollander, Zach Galifianakis and Dame Judi Dench? One review out of Prague suggests it’s a guilty pleasure “enjoyable despite itself ... wholly recommended for anyone of terrible taste.”
Then again, you may want to take the advice of the Weinstein Company, which has buried Tulip Fever deep in the cinematic soil, far from the critical sunlight. Dig it up at your own risk.