CheerupSilver Very Cool!!!

Bessie Smyth Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

SnoopyStyle Giacomo Casanova (Peter O'Toole) is working in obscurity as a poor librarian in a nobleman's castle. Edith (Rose Byrne) is a new servant. Her father gambled away the family wealth before his death. She is educated and in awe of Casanova's legend. He is writing his memoirs and recalls his life to her. As a boy, he is left behind by his courtesan mother. As a young man (David Tennant), he is penniless and without any connections. Henriette (Laura Fraser) likes the young pretender and immediately steals his purse. He takes Rocco as his manservant. He starts pretending to be a lawyer, a physician, an astrologer, a musician and others. Flirtatious Henriette gets engaged to pompous Duke of Grimani. Casanova falls for singer Bellino who is pretending to be a boy. Henriette continues to be his great love but she prefers the safety of Grimani's money. He saves rich noble Bragadin from callous physicians and their operation. Bragadin adopts Casanova and Henriette agrees to marry him. The jealous Grimani has Casanova imprisoned.Peter O'Toole is a terrific Casanova. He exudes charm. I love his flirtatious cat and mouse game with Rose Byrne. If that is all in the movie, this would be a great masterpiece. It would be a movie worthy of some acting awards. O'Toole is bringing a power deep within him. It's a sight to behold. I am less in love of David Tennant as Casanova. He's more jokey. He doesn't have O'Toole's reservoir of darkness. Those parts feel less weighty and more like a TV movie of Casanova. It's still worthwhile to see but I wish the movie stays with O'Toole more.

Manal S. Absolutely wonderful!! Never knew that David Tennant can be so cheeky and adorable! This is way much better than late Heath Ledger's Casanova. Ledger was sexy and everything, but Tennant really has what it takes to be a Casanova; he's cute, kind, and extremely funny. Peter O'Toole also fascinated me with his performance as usual... he really added grandeur and beauty to the work. Although it is a TV mini-series, the direction was really beautiful and managed to capture the fast-moving, adventurous and dazzling world of Casanova (the dark side of it as well!); Sheree really did a great job. This mini-series will make you cry, laugh, love and live!!

grandmastersik I was fortunate enough to catch this on television one evening, right out of the blue.Normally I don't watch much TV, but this came on following some programme that was playing to itself and it grabbed me almost instantly with its humour.Being broadcast on Finnish television over two evenings, I was agog to see the second part, for the first half of this one was touching, funny, and so uniquely entertaining - with a brilliant cast to boot!By the end of the entire thing, I felt a strange sensation within me: INSPIRATION.Oddly enough, some American-produced film based on the same individual came out not long after, with some daft Australian actor at the helm. That piece was pretty hyped-up and well marketed, being released into cinemas rather than straight to TV.I've not seen this other "version" and don't intend to ever - I've heard enough about to to know that it couldn't possibly stand up to the challenge of comparison I'd be making whilst watching it.Read other reviews if you want to get a plot over-view; this article is simply to sing the praises for what was a beautiful, witty and powerful piece of film - recommended viewing for all!Now: if only it had been THIS film that had the backing of millions of Hollywood cash...

Robert I'm absolutely dumbstruck by some of the reviews I've read here. The only explanation I can come up with is that most reviewers are unfamiliar with the historic Giacomo Casanova, and have never seen any of the vastly superior treatments of his story (such as "La Nuit de Varennes"). One of the reviewers even describes it as being about a man from the "17th century". Off by a hundred years, I'm afraid, which is roughly as far off as this movie is from either a well-done biographical film or a historically-accurate one. No, it's Hollywood (or rather, the British approximation of it) through and through.This version is, in reality, a "Casanova" for the "Sex and the City" and "Men Behaving Badly" crowd; all winks and nudges and brash cheekiness. David Tenant is amusing, but absolutely lacking in charisma or depth, much less skill. In fact, he bears an uncanny resemblance to the bumbling characters that Eric Idle used to play. Peter O'Toole does an over-the-top caricature of himself; a role he seems to have been relegated to for the past 25 years. Sad, really. The rest of the cast seems to have been assembled from whoever was hanging around the studio that day, as they obviously weren't chosen for their verisimilitude or subtlety.But the story is far the worst thing about this flick. The dialog is farcical, the plot is boilerplate, there are countless historical mistakes. For example, Casanova fires a pistol into the air to threaten a group of men, and says he'll shoot them next. Problem is, all pistols were single-shot for another hundred years; it would've actually taken him another 2 minutes to reload another shot; any man of the time would've known that! They also dance the waltz; something that didn't appear in Venice for another 50 years. I was surprised to not see Casanova riding a motorcycle while chatting on his mobile phone."Casanova" isn't above trying to titillate by teasing us with an "is she/isn't she" shtick about a mulatto castrato that Casanova "falls in love with". But of course, after playing around with the faux-mosexual aspect, surprise! -it's a girl after all, so the audience can all heave a sigh of relief at Casanova's good fortune. But the real Casanova was well-known to be bisexual (look it up on Wikipedia), although actually having the nerve to show that here seems to be beyond the film-maker's integrity, the audience's stomach, or (most likely) both.The dialog swings between maudlin (when Casanova offers to rescue his prison cell-mate, he responds "but I can't leave; this is my home!") and stand-up comedy, as when Casanova makes his confession and rattles off a laundry list of the women he's slept with ("two sisters, at the same time. Many times. But at least I didn't sleep with their mother. Although I've done that. Many times. So sorry.") And I mustn't forget to mention that the sappy string synthesizers in the incidental music would be right at home in a third-rate soap opera. It's sad to see "Casanova" dumbed down this far. It's sadder still to see it overpraised by people who don't know the historic and literary Giacomo Casanova from Nathan Barley.