Not having read the Thornton Wilder novel, it's hard to compare. There are flickers of good acting, but too many leaden (and unidiomatic) lines too, with the pot-pourri of today's in-your-face accents (none Spanish, none suggesting period Peru or Spain) and acting/speaking styles not heightening the illusion or the involvement. The theme of ambition, self-interest, exploitation, hypocrisy and injustice, together with uneasy (and unsuccessful) attempts to square it with faith and providence is handled well, though, probably thanks more to Wilder than to this film's too often clumsy attempts to evoke the period (nowhere more anomalous than in the acoustics: the lines spoken and the eclectic musical sound-track); visually it seems better (but hard to judge whether these effects are more faithful than the obviously off-base acoustics). Kathy Bates has her moments, as does Geraldine Chaplin (her accent less at odds with her role). The male leads are more memorable for some of their facial expressions than their too often awkward and anomalous lines. The younger parts (apart from the twins) are too thin to do much with, apart from the Perichole role, which seems to have been a missed opportunity to craft into something more memorable. -- Istvan Hesslein