Casanova

The legendary lover (Heath Ledger) becomes smitten with the freethinking Francesca Bruni (Sienna Miller), but his reputation precedes him, so he must woo her under a succession of false identities. The script by Jeffrey Hatcher and Kimberly Simi (from a story by Simi and Michael Cristofer) has less in common with the real Casanova than with the old Bob Hope movie Casanova’s Big Night—and that’s not necessarily bad. The movie is a rollicking, door-slamming sex farce of intrigue and mistaken identity, with a sterling cast, including Jeremy Irons as Casanova’s nemesis, Lena Olin as Miller’s mother and Oliver Platt as (no kidding) a corpulent lard merchant from Genoa. Director Lasse Hallström begins huffing and puffing to keep things moving in the last minutes, but it’s good fun most of the way.