Tulip Fever

There are those who, when part way through an endeav­our which is clear­ly des­tined for fol­ly, would sim­ply throw in the tow­el and nobly accept them­selves beat­en. Tulip Fever appears as an exam­ple of the oppo­site, where an unmis­tak­able wrong­ness which demands urgent self cor­rec­tion is swept aside in favour of a vul­gar dash towards the fin­ish line. The sto­ry con­cerns the 17^th cen­tu­ry ​“tulip mania” (a wide scale fix­a­tion with rare tulip bulbs) and takes place in an Ams­ter­dam where the entire grub­by pop­u­lace have amassed on a sin­gle sound­stage con­sist­ing of one street, one court­yard, one pub and one dim­ly lit house.

In an attempt to extract some febrile colour from the locale, exte­ri­or shots con­sist of the same clam­my-faced extras dust­ing rugs or hoist­ing bas­kets of her­ring or swig­ging a mug of ale. It looks like a British pres­tige cin­e­ma theme park expe­ri­ence, and so it’s near impos­si­ble to sus­pend dis­be­lief and accept the high seri­ous­ness of the film’s decid­ed­ly lunatic plot line, which involves fun­da­men­tal­ist reli­gion, infer­til­i­ty, baby swap­ping, coin­ci­dences, por­trait paint­ing, some more coin­ci­dences, ille­gal back room tulip bulb trad­ing and even more real­ly sus­pect coincidences.

Before we delve into the details, it must be said that this sto­ry – based on a nov­el by Deb­o­rah Mog­gach and co-adapt­ed by Tom Stop­pard – con­tains a num­ber of nar­ra­tive con­trivances that are so brazen in their idio­cy that even the most for­giv­ing peri­od romp lover will like­ly splut­ter in mock indig­na­tion at how the sor­did machi­na­tions unfold. Sor­ry to labour the point, but this entire film hinges on a num­ber of moments so unbe­liev­able that it’s hard to accept the mak­ers even went ahead and filmed the sto­ry as is. When hap­pen­stance rules, dra­ma suffers.

Ali­cia Vickan­der cranks her sim­per­ing waif schtick up to the max as Sophia, orphan-turned-wife to demure local pep­per­corn mag­nate Cor­nelis (Christoph Waltz). With the Lord hav­ing tak­en his chil­dren from him, Cor­nelis is in need an heir, and so read­ies his ​“lit­tle sol­diers” each night to mechan­i­cal­ly march into Sophia’s loins – but it’s just not hap­pen­ing. Yet, through a series of lucky coin­ci­dences, Sophia sees a way out. House­maid Maria (a game Hol­l­i­day Grainger) is up the duff, and it could be the chance need­ed to flit with por­trait painter-turned-tulip obses­sive Jan (a spec­tac­u­lar­ly awful Dane DeHaan).

If there’s some­thing to sal­vage here it is Waltz, who at least refus­es the easy option of mak­ing his char­ac­ter the cack­ling bad guy. His pitiable cuck­old ends up with the most sur­pris­ing and cred­i­ble char­ac­ter arc, and even though he’s forced to play along with much gnarly dia­logue, he man­ages to break even in the end. Final­ly, the film tells you lit­tle if any­thing about the ​“tulip mania” – by its reck­on­ing, the whole fad involved jow­ly tyrants in over­sized ruffs scream­ing num­bers and flap­ping paper in the base­ment of a pub.

Yes, it all sounds lov­ably loopy on paper, but on screen it makes for a ran­cid mess. And that’s not even men­tion­ing Cara Delev­ingne as a misc wench with a sin­gle line of dia­logue, and – wait for it – Zach Gal­i­fi­anakis as a drunk­en rube with a com­e­dy west coun­try accent. It’s like a car crash where peo­ple have gath­ered around to sur­vey the wreck­age and anoth­er car then acci­den­tal­ly plows in to inflict yet more dam­age. Tonal­ly it’s all over the map, begin­ning as baroque dra­ma, then becom­ing a soft-focus erot­ic thriller, mor­ph­ing sud­den­ly into Ray Cooney-style bed­room farce, and then end­ing in a fraz­zle of awk­ward loose ends.