Monday Night Film Series: Tulip Fever

Based on the novel by celebrated author Deborah Moggach (These Foolish Things), Tulip Fever tells the tale of a torrid romance between a painter and a beautiful, young married woman at the height of tulip mania in 17th-century Amsterdam. Drawing from an adapted screenplay by playwright Sir Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare in Love, Anna Karenina), director Justin Chadwick (The Other Boleyn Girl) once again employs his masterful eye for detail to bring this period drama to vivid life.

When wealthy merchant Cornelis (Christoph Waltz, Big Eyes; Inglourious Basterds) commissions a portrait of his beautiful wife Sophia (Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl; Testament of Youth), an irre­pressible passion begins to bloom between Sophia and the talented young artist (Dane DeHaan, Two Lovers and a Bear; Devil’s Knot) hired to commit her beauty to canvas. As the young star-crossed lovers hinge their future together on an investment in the risky tulip market, tensions build and deceptions abound as the stakes grow higher.

Beautifully shot in muted palettes reminis­cent of Vermeer, Tulip Fever features quietly powerful performances from its two leads, as well as another wonderfully ominous turn from the Academy Award–winning Waltz. Dame Judi Dench also brings her infamously dry wit to the role of a surprisingly cheeky abbess.

Tulip Fever interweaves the narrative of one of the most astonishing economic events in European history with a deeply intimate tale of desire, betrayal, and perilous ambition. As the young lovers become ever more daring in their commitment, both to each other and towards a shared future, we are reminded of that universal truth: the course of true love never did run smooth.

Tulip Fever | Monday Night Film Series | Tilley Hall, Room 102, UNB Campus | November 27, 2017 – 7:30pm | See full schedule