4/5 How do you see this movie? As sour grapes or vintage wine?
  by H. Bala (Carson - hey, we have an IKEA store! - CA USA)
Others deplore this movie as overly sappy and manipulative. I tend to be more charitable. After all, every movie tries its best to pull the strings of its audience, and the issue then is the subtlety at which they go about it. And, yeah, to be frank, A WALK IN THE CLOUDS comes about as subtle as Keanu Reeves' acting. And, yet, that didn't matter to me. I found myself responding to the sweeping romance, the lush cinematography, the rousing score, and the beautiful yearning couple. A WALK IN THE CLOUDS is my fourth favorite Keanu Reeves movie, after The Matrix, Speed (Widescreen Edition), and Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. And it's never dropped the ball as an effective date flick.

It's set during the World War II era, so right away you're planted in a place and a time in flux, when sentiment was embraced fully, when life was lived at its fullest, and desperate love stories resonated like mad. After his stint in the military, young war veteran Paul Sutton (Reeves) readjusts to civilian life. Occasionally suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, Paul says goodbye to a wife he's hardly seen and sets off on his humble new job as a traveling salesman of chocolate bon bons. Journeying from Frisco to Sacramento, Paul meets Victoria Aragon, a distressed beautiful girl on her way home from college, and finally the story gets going.

Paul Sutton is one of those guys you can count on. He learns that Victoria is in trouble. She is expecting, but has been abandoned by the baby's father, some weasel of a guy. And, now on her way home, she is ashamed and dreads her proud father's displeasure. Now here's the key premise: To save her honor, Paul offers to temporarily pose as Victoria's husband, and she accepts. And, just to emphasize that this is a fable as much as a sumptuous love story, Victoria and Paul are soon gazing down into an idyllic valley kissed lovingly by the sun and with just that hint of mist at the edges (a soul-filling vision you don't much get in real life). Victoria's wealthy family owns and runs a vineyard in Napa, and this valley seems so bountiful and blessed that I have no doubt grapes willingly go there to die.

The movie hearkens to those old-time cinematic love stories, and if you buy into it, then you'll have a blast gnashing your teeth as obstacles surface for the star-crossed lovers only for those obstacles to be knocked down, and then only to have further obstacles pop up. The main thorn is Victoria's blustery, suffocating father Alberto Aragon (a very good Giancarlo Giannini). Alberto is highly offended that a) his daughter shows up married without warning and b) that she married a gringo, and a gringo whose vocation is selling candy. Another pretty big deterrent is that Paul is still married, so, really, how far can things go with Victoria? Female viewers have sighed at this unbearable impasse (I know, I've already had to watch this flick a bunch of times with chicks). I did say this was an effective date movie, didn't I?

You soak in the story's earthiness and sensuality, and while this isn't quite in the realm of magical realism, there's an echo of that going on. Director Alfonso Arau, who earlier had made the wonderful Like Water for Chocolate, urges you to lose yourself in the doings onscreen, the images are this evocative. Alfonso Arau even takes an old cornball scene and makes it one of the film's best moments. It's when that old romantic soul, Don Pedro (Anthony Quinn, terrific), coaxes Paul into serenading Victoria underneath her window as she lay sleeping. Paul is drunk but willing and this leads to one of the many grace notes of the film - grace notes, providing that you allow yourself to let go. There's also the grape stomping ritual, which, as performed by Aitana Sanchez-Gijon, somehow turns out a lot sexier than when Lucille Ball did it. But, okay, the scene where everyone heats up the frost-bitten grapes with butterfly wings? That might've been too much.

I'm sort of torn between admiring Keanu's simplicity of acting and making fun of his robot-like line delivery. To label Reeves' performance as one-dimensional is to spot him one dimension too many. I get the feeling that, to Keanu, being nuanced means that he should hold off on saying "whoa" in a movie. On the other hand, there's a certain level of comfort with that same simplicity of acting. In keeping with its place and period, there's no room for clever cynicism or pop culture snark. That would destroy the old-fashioned romantic mood the film is trying to invoke. A love story like this resorts to old school sensibilities, and that includes requiring the leading man to be a stand-up guy, to be, to use a couple of outdated words, "gallant" and "honorable." Reeves solidly demonstrates these attributes. Plus, he and Aitana Sanchez-Gijon sizzle in their scenes together.

Discounting Keanu, the story is marked with several outstanding performances. Giancarlo Giannini is pretty great as the acerbic, domineering Alberto Aragon, Victoria's dad. Old-timer Anthony Quinn steals every scene with his wise and generous-hearted patriarch, Don Pedro Aragon. But, since I'm a guy, Aitana Sanchez-Gijon, in a rare venture into American pictures, ends up making the most impact. The girl is luminous, and it's a bad blow that she hasn't done much in American cinema before and since. She certainly made a fan out of me. More than anything else, Aitana Sanchez-Gijon is the reason I buy into this sappy movie.

2/5 Overripe grapes...
  by jon sieruga (Redlands, CA USA)
Hilariously cornball, shamelessly manipulative, unforgivably hoary, indigestible remake of Alessandro Blasetti's 1942 Italian film "Four Steps in the Clouds" features enough stock characters and phony dialogue to overload a half-dozen more movies. WWII-era GI returns home to an indifferent wife; disillusioned, he hits the road to California by train, meeting a troubled, unmarried Italian miss on his journey. The train lurches suddenly and the two fall to the floor (in the missionary position!); she stands up and vomits on his uniform (cue to the audience: she's either got motion-sickness or she's pregnant...my guess would be the latter). He volunteers to temporarily pose as her husband once she returns to her hot-tempered Italian brood nestled deep in the valley on a Northern California vineyard estate ("It's called 'The Clouds'!"); naturally, leaving the forlorn beauty the next night proves to be difficult for the young soldier. "Her father said the gringo would leave her," the grandpa tells him, "And he will whip her with it!" What exactly does this mean, and what kind of a father has this woman got, anyway? Keanu Reeves, blinking blankly with a slack expression, is such a terrible actor, he can't even look at the family spread and exclaim "It's beautiful!" without sounding insincere. The cinematography and scoring hope to provide a romantic, old-fashioned sweep to the narrative, but with such horrendous writing it's all for naught.

5/5 Beautiful! It's nice to see real integrity and character in a movie.
  by K. Morrison (Oklahoma)
This movie is beautiful on many levels: the scenery, family dynamics and relationships and the integrity and character protrayed by Keanu is so refreshing. This is a movie I will watch again and again!

5/5 A walk in the clouds
  by Vickie R. Armstrong (Washougal, Wa. USA)
This movie is very heart warming and romantic. It shows the sacrifices the men who fought in wars of the time went through. Like getting married right before getting shipped out,only to come home to heartache. But find their true loves in the end. I would recommend this movie to women and men ( my husband likes it). It truely warms your heart.

1/5 Dissapointed
  by Sarah D. Womack
When I received the package I realized that I had been sent the wrong movie. I ordered "A Walk in the Clouds." I was mailed "A Walk to Remember." I paid the shipping to mail the incorrect DVD back to the vendor and now over a month later I still have not received the movie I originally purchased. I am frustrated at the money and time wasted. I am also dissapointed in the lack of concern on the vendor's part. They told me they never received the incorrect DVD back and that was the last I heard from them.