Not Your Average Valentine's Day Fluff

This is Akiva Goldsman's first turn as a director of a feature film. His credibility as a writer is undeniable and my sense is the writing in 'Winter's Tale' is nicely cut.

With Colin Farrell and Jessica Brown Findlay in the leads. Also with Will Smith, William Hurt, Jennifer Connelly, Eva Marie Saint, and Russell Crowe as the convincing bad guy. Quite the cast to say the least.

Based on the acclaimed novel by Mark Helprin. So, how good was the novel? From Wikipedia:

Winter's Tale was published in 1983. Praised on the front cover of the New York Times Book Review (NYTBR) as "funny, thoughtful, passionate...large-souled"...

In May 2006, the New York Times Book Review published a list of American novels, compiled from the responses to "a short letter [from the review] to a couple of hundred prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages, asking them to identify 'the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years.'" Among the twenty-two books to have received multiple votes was Helprin's Winter's Tale.[4]

Due 2/14, however it's feeling like there's more here than the usual Valentine's Day fluff.