I love this movie! The book went into a lot of description along the way - but seemed to drag for me. The movie summed up the struggle that each character faces, while making you ache for them to be together. This is my favorite role for Renee Zellweger.
A truly epic film. The English Patient seamlessly blends together two interwoven storylines that take place in separate timeframes. The romance between the two leads (Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas) is wonderfully believable; they both bring a fascinating depth to their respective characters, and the interactions they have with each other. The locations are breathtaking; the desert is shown to be beautifully barren, and full of a complexity which manifests itself in the triumphs and trials of the main characters. Although the film's plot is slow, it's done so in a deliberate, gentle manner; it moves steadily enough for the viewer to connect with the characters.
Matt Damon gives an eerily effective performance as a man who uses other people's identities as his own in this chilling psychological thriller by the late Anthony Minghella.
http://braidedthreads.blogspot.com/2008/09/lives-of-others.html ...This dramatic thriller is set in East Germany during the socially repressive era just before the fall of the Berlin wall. Gerd Wiesler, played brilliantly by the late Ulrich Mühe, is a member of the Stasi secret police and is an expert in surveilance and interrogation. But his beliefs are brought into question as he engages in an assignment that has him listening in on the conversations that take place in the appartment of a German intellectual and playwrite (Georg Dreyman) thought to be a threat to the ruling German Democratic Republic. As he listens in on Dreyman's life, Wiesler begins to awaken from his stringent existence, and experiences wonder, joy, and sorrow as if for the first time.