Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

SimonJack This BBC production on George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, isn't about the works of the renowned English poet and satirist, known widely as Lord Byron. Rather, its focus is on the life of the man. As such, it seems to do a very good job of showing a conflicted and tormented life that Byron lived. This is the story of a tortured soul who wrote about his own conflicts and failure to find fulfillment in pleasure. And it is about a witty, talented thinker and writer who could give us such classical satire as "Don Juan."I think a passage from the Encyclopedia Britannica describes well the varying views on Byron's place in letters. "Renowned as the 'gloomy egoist' of his autobiographical poem, "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" (1812-18), in the 19th century, he is now more generally esteemed for the satiric realism of "Don Juan" (1819-24)." It was long ago that I read "Don Juan" and perhaps some small parts of other works or letters. So, I appreciated the review by Ginger Johnson (3 December 2005) who gave some information and points about the film as it depicted Byron's life. With the reviews I've read as of the time of my writing, I am surprised that no one has commented on Byron's background and upbringing. His is a classic tale (if, indeed, one can use the term in this context) of a broken home in childhood, with an abusive, negligent and then absent father. As a boy, he and his mother were a low-income family, and then at the age of 10 he had great wealth thrust upon him by inheritance. He grew up without discipline or responsibilities. He was extremely self- centered and selfish – what we might call "spoiled" today. Why is this worth pondering? Because, had he grown up in a healthy home with loving parents and some direction, there's a good chance that Bryon's life would not have been so tragic and short. And, we might have had the pleasure of more literary treasures today.The film covers mostly his last few years with his adultery, heavy drinking, and constant pursuits of pleasure amidst his travels. I agree that the acting was very good by all. The direction and technical aspects were all quite good. And, while it is a good depiction of the life of Lord Byron, I can't say that I enjoyed the film as entertainment. Nor could I enjoy watching it time and again, as one reviewer says he does. As reviewer Ginger Johnson noted, because Byron's life was "ill-spent," the film isn't a joy to watch. I can watch films about tragedies, injustices and other subjects that may be edifying or educational in some sense, but that often are not enjoyable entertainment. The life of Lord Byron was a tragedy. He died at 36, a tormented, conflicted soul, trying to help a cause he thought worthy. I think this film rightly does not celebrate Byron or his life. Rather, it laments the great loss for what might yet have been. Therein is the tragedy.

majkelanka I am appalled by some of the reviews on this movie. The people who take the time to criticize the film because they find Byron's personality inherently distasteful are no better than the stuck-up, vapid, and inherently depressed figures that also made up the aristocratic regency of England. Hypersensitive people like Lady Caroline or Byron merely reflect the madness and desperation festering within all of us, as well as the absolute solipsism. For one reviewer to find it important to tell us the movie was lusterless because Byron was a chaotic and dissolute fiend is about as productive as setting a leaf on fire and hoping the forest will catch. For your information, Byron was and is a hero to those who would dream. Don't take the opportunity to offer your privileged and sheltered scornful opinion on a legacy and film that have no time for such worthless peons of petulancy such as yourself. Yes he did things in his life that are considered horrible, but now he, and those he hurt, are no more than flakes of dust and dirt blowing around this world. Take time to focus on your menial existence rather than pompously proselytizing about others.Now that I am done putting down the insufferable philistines who found it fit to comment, I'll offer my own opinion on this movie. I adore this movie, and I make a habit of watching it at least once a month if I can. Sure it's choice of making an apex of Byron's life in England is blatantly wrong, and I thank the person who wrote that wonderful review mentioning how that choice is only a mark of the continuously conservative and scandal-obsessed society we live in today, but the aesthetics of the film remain intact. In fact, this biopic is perhaps the best I have seen in regards to its respect for the viewer's basic intelligence, wit, and sense of aesthetic. We are given the life of a man hounded by his own existence bar none. My favorite scenes were the ones between Byron and Augusta, though I would have liked to have seen Shelley get a larger role and have Keats ridiculed by Byron as well (that middle-class masturbator, to paraphrase Byron).Please, if your mind is as sufficiently petty as benbrae76 (who wrote that god-awful review), don't bother commenting. Or even better, take a cue from Fanny Imlay (Mary Shelley's half-sister) and kill yourself.

otaqueen I find myself disagreeing with a previous reviewer. Byron was indeed a beast, apparently, but because Miller plays him as a damned beast, I found myself sympathetic toward the character. I thought the casting was good, and especially liked "Lady Caroline"'s insanity -- what a hairdo! Lovely costuming. "Shelley" was excellent, too. He seemed soulful, half-crazed, and damned as well. Weren't all the Romantics...?And Vanessa Redgrave, of course, was marvelous. One could actually imagine how, if there "had been fewer years between (them)," it might have been a very short dinner, indeed.Inner-City High School English Teacher Central Valley, California

wdarbishire This is the only film depiction of Byron I've seen that attempts to portray him as the clever, funny man that he was rather than some cartoon goth with a big floaty cloak, eyeliner and an evil, reverberating laugh. Other films tend to be simple, self-indulgent perpetuations of Byron's partially self-made myth and this film is the only one I have seen so far that shows something of what was beneath: Regency society seen through Lord Byron's eyes as he rips the piss. Jonny Lee Miller carries off the parallel aspects of Byron's personality with aplomb, making him smug and petulant while unavoidably charismatic and likable. Of course it's still all conjecture, as is emphasised at the start of the film, but as far as Byron films go, there's nothing out there to touch this.