Martin Eden

The film traces Martin's love affair with the pursuit of individual advancement. Like capitalism, it's seductive.

In Italian star Luca Marinelli, he's cast a true-blue matinee idol as the tortured hero: in an extraordinary performance that matches brute physicality to soulful interior yearning, he carries the film on square shoulders.

So much narrative ambition can be enervating, but Marinelli's performance is mesmerizing. It helps that he is broodingly beautiful, somewhere between Brando and Belmondo

Despite the liberties it takes with the source material, the film is dramatically and emotionally immensely satisfying.

A sweep of cinematic history earned by the film's aspirations. No film could replicate the tragic weight of London's work, but this comes awfully close.

What ideas "Martin Eden" has are borrowed straight from the novel; what substance the novel has the movie removes, leaving its one big, notable idea emblazoned on it like a sticker on the bumper of a car being sold in a commercial...

“In ‘Martin Eden,’ the games that Marcello plays with form and structure coalesce into an immensely moving film, which — grounded by the standout turn from Marinelli — offers a new direction for the stale “Great American Novel” adaptation.”

... The film surpasses the story it tells to capably broach social and philosophical confines without ever overstating them. [Full review in Spanish]

As a kind of postmodern spin on a Visconti-type melodrama, the film is something to see. The storyline itself, though, is a bit tiresome in its old-fashionedness.

I enjoy Martin Eden (and its soundtrack!) very much on a style level...