Mad Love

The unhappy life of Juana the Mad, the sixteenth-century Castilian princess removed from the throne on grounds of insanity and put into genteel confinement until her death in 1555, becomes in the hands of writer-director Vicente Aranda, a big, plush, overripe tale of misguided passion and political skullduggery. In his telling, the unfortunate heroine (Pilar Lopez de Ayala) is less mad than simply (and understandably) angry--undone first by her marriage to the handsome philanderer Philip of Austria (Daniele Liotti), who wants sole possession of the crown, and then by her father Ferdinand of Aragon, who aims to rule Castile himself after Philip's sudden demise. By diluting the political complexities and ignoring evidence that Juana was truly unbalanced, however, Aranda turns Mad Love into a florid portrait of a woman wronged that's more romanticized history lesson than serious drama. While elegant on the surface, the handsome mounting can't compensate for the film's historical liberties, emotional overstatement, and excessive length. Not a necessary purchase. (F. Swietek)