Based on the 1985 novel of the same name by the Colombian Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez, it tells the story of love between Fermina Daza (played by Giovanna Mezzogiorno) and her lover, Florentino Ariza (Javier Bardem) and her husband Juvenal Urbino (Benjamin Bratt) which spans 50 years, from 1880 to 1930.

They secretly correspond, and she eventually agrees to marry him, but her father discovers their relationship and sends her to stay with distant relatives (mainly her grandmother and niece).

[3] The London-based animation studio VooDooDog created the title and end sequences, which draw inspiration from the colors and atmosphere of South America.

"[7] Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly, gave it a "D" rating and called it a "turgid and lifeless movie adaptation", opining that "those who have read Gabriel García Márquez's glowing and sexy 1988 novel about one man's grand love for a woman who marries another are bound to be peevishly disappointed ... those who haven't read the book will now never understand the ardor of those who have — at least not based on all the hammy traipsing and coupling and scene-hopping thrown together here.

"[8] In the Los Angeles Times, Carina Chocano stated, "the novel has made it to the screen in the form of a plodding, tone-deaf, overripe, overheated Oscar baiting telenovela ...

Doubtless it's an enormously daunting task to adapt a book at once so sweeping and internal, so swooningly romantic and philosophical, but it takes a lighter touch and a more expansive view than Newell and Harwood seem to bring.