bkoganbing I'm afraid a lot in America won't get the significance of The Serpent's Kiss as far as the gardens were concerned. At the point of time that this film is depicting 1699 in the reign of William I in Great Britain, the rich nobility even the nouveau rich that Peter Postlethwaite is portraying had this passion for ornate gardens. It was a style trend among those who could afford it. King Louis XIV in France designed the best for Versailles and everyone tried to copy him. So Postlethwaite who is a munitions manufacturer by trade and rich because of it has to have the most ornate garden in the kingdom so he can proclaim his status to the world.Enter Ewan MacGregor who plays a Dutch designer of gardens, he even worked for William of Orange. He goes to work for Postelthwaite and his wife Greta Sacchi to do his own version of Versailles and he's encouraged in this by Sacchi's cousin Richard Grant who has more than a passing interest in this project. It's his hope to bankrupt Postelthwaite and in turn win Sacchi for himself. Grant got something on MacGregor and he forces MacGregor to help him in his designs.Without the ornate status symbol garden Postelthwaite may still go bankrupt as he has an ill daughter in Carmen Chaplin and he's paying some heavy duty bills to quack doctors for her care.Some really fine mansion gardens in the UK that are great tourist attractions still serve as the backdrop of a most aesthetically pleasing film. Things don't quite work out for the plotter Grant and the people he uses and the ones he plots against. But that you see the film for.If you understand the concept that in 1699 those ornate gardens were a status symbol than The Serpent's Kiss will make sense to you.

semioticz When Maneer Chrome (Ewan McGregor) is hired by a wealthy patron Thomas Smithers (Pete Postlethwaite) to create out of "chaos" a magnificent garden that reflects the family's aristocracy, Chrome has no idea that Mrs. Juliana Smither's (Greta Sacchi) 'kissing cousin', James Fitzmaurice (Richard E. Grant) has plotted to bankrupt the family so that he can finally have Juliana for himself.While that is the apparent main plot, there's an intriguing ongoing subplot. Seems the Smither's daughter, Thea/Anna (Carmen Chaplin), thrives in the wooded 'chaos' with a home life that is so stringently ordered & controlled during the Romantic era. Chrome's going to completely destroy Thea's (as she calls herself instead of Anna) refuge: nature in the woods behind her home. This brings her to the brink of insanity, or so her father believes. Therefore, he calls in a (sadistic) physician (Donal McCann) to "cure" the young woman of her "ailments." Chrome is the only one in the picture who realizes that Thea's probably the only sane member of the family. So, in order to show her that he understands her need for the wild & freedom of nature, he builds into the garden a spring just for her. While this begins to endear him to her, Lady Juliana has begun to pay seductive attention to Chrome & the smitten Thea witnesses this. Juliana's attempts to seduce Chrome while her husband is away doesn't escape the notice of her pathologically jealous cousin James, either. Philippe Rousselot directs Tim Rose Price's screenplay.This is an odd show that would seem more like a film coming from Lynch, Cronenberg, Nero or Waters. I keep watching it out of intrigue with the story's intricacies.

meusiclver I found this movie to be very strange, and indeed it is! The first time I watched this movie I thought to myself "What the heck is going on here!" I completely missed the point of the movie the first time I saw it. Fortunately, I was already acquainted with some of Ewan M.'s work, and thought that surely Mr. Mcgregor would have more sense than to make a pointless movie. Thankfully I was right. I would advise anyone who doesn't understand this movie, or who has only seen it once, to watch it again. There is a deeper meaning. All of the actors and actresses were fabulous in this movie! Although the movie could have served just as well as a short feature, I'm glad that it is longer so that I can enjoy the chemistry between the cast members longer.

cghoover8 I found both script and acting to be painfully bad for the first half hour or so, but things seemed to take a turn for the better after Meneer Chrome lost his wig (no, seriously). Scacchi was as glorious as ever; McGregor was as enjoyable as ever; and the other three principles each held down their corner of the story. The biggest weakness was the garden itself - it seems like the filmmakers were even less able to afford Chrome's vision than Smithers was, with a result that was more suited to a stage production than a movie. I'm not convinced that this movie was a good use of two hours of my time, but I also find that I can't get some of the imagery out of my head - generally recommended if you have patience with period pieces and like movies that ask more questions than they answer.