Let me start off by saying that Love in the Time of Cholera is my favorite novel of all time. As an English major and writer, stating a favorite novel is like picking a favorite Ben & Jerry’s flavor: “Well, I really love ‘Americone Dream’ cause I love Stephen Colbert, but then the flavor ‘Everything But The...’ is amazing, though on certain days I prefer sherbert,†you get the picture.

That being said, when I went to see the film adaptation of this Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel, I tried my best to check my bias at the door and watch the movie as if I had never read the book. I put my faith in Marquez’s incredible descriptions to guide the filmmakers and in screenwriter Ronald Harwood, who adapted The Pianist for the big screen. Though I have never walked out on a movie before, not even Fred Claus (don’t bother!) or the worst atrocity to ever hit screens, Dana Carvey’s Master of Disguise, if I had not been reviewing this film I would have left within the first 20 minutes. It was only fear of my editors that kept me in that seat.

The film, like the book, follows two destined lovers, Florentino Ariza (Javier Bardem) and Fermina Urbino (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) through 19th-Century Spain over a span of “53 years, seven months, and 11 days and nights,†playing with every possible type of love along the way. Both film and book open with the death and funeral of Fermina Daza’s husband, Dr. Juvenal Urbino (Benjamin Bratt). These opening scenes are nearly impossible to watch as the main actors are forced to play 70-year-olds and due to apparently having the worst makeup job I’ve seen in a while they end up looking more like children putting on a play at home than real actors.

And the movie just goes downhill from there.

While humorous at times, this film takes one of the greatest love stories of our time by a Nobel Prize-winning author and turns it into a farce not even worthy of a Telemundo soap (though the similarities are astounding). Though the film follows the novel’s plot quite closely and does borrow a significant portion of the dialogue, it ends up feeling much more like “Death and Sex in the Time of Cholera†than “Love.â€

The characters fall flat throughout the film, despite a fairly recognizable and acclaimed cast including Bardem (Before Night Falls, No Country for Old Men), John Leguizamo (Moulin Rouge, Romeo + Juliet) and Bratt (“Law & Orderâ€, Miss Congeniality). The film presents caricatures of lovers, horribly over-acted, reducing Marquez’s incredible prose to emotionless, I-can’t-believe-it’s-this-bad, B-movie comedy.

The film does have its saving graces, keeping it more at the level of “Days of Our Lives†than Gigli. Luguizamo, for example, is hilarious as Fermina’s over-protective and somewhat violent father, which does not fit Marquez’s character, but is completely watchable nonetheless. However, for reasons inexplicable to me, Luguizamo cannot manage to maintain a Spanish accent.

If you assume that the acting is purposefully awful, it can be quite funny. In the end, I’m not surprised at how awful it was, coming from director Mike Newell, who has brought his most recently directed Mona Lisa Smile and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire to the screen, both of which were adaptations of novels that failed critically.

My recommendation: Skip this one and read the book. It will change your life. And if you’re really in the mood for a romantic movie... I hear The Notebook’s good.