TULIP FEVER
An underwritten romance whose graphic content overwhelms its limited merits.
Should You Watch It?
TULIP FEVER has a few worthwhile ideas. It presents forgiveness as costly and real: Cornelis rises above the shock of his wife’s betrayal, offers his home to Maria and her child, and responds with Christian charity. The film also suggests that human love and emotion should not be treated like commodities.
But those merits are buried under graphic depictions of adultery and premarital sex. The story’s elaborate deceptions make Sophia and Jan unpleasant characters to root for, even though the film shows that their actions are wrong and have consequences. Its dialogue is heavy-handed, and its stage-bound presentation makes the movie feel thin rather than absorbing.
You may find something to discuss about forgiveness, marriage, and sin. For your family or your own viewing, however, skip this one.
The Story
NO SPOILERS — WE KEEP THE SURPRISESIn 17th-century Amsterdam, Sophia escapes poverty by marrying Cornelis, a wealthy trader who expects her to bear him a son. When Cornelis hires Jan to paint their portrait, Sophia and the artist become attracted to each other and begin a secret affair.
Meanwhile, Sophia’s maid, Maria, becomes pregnant through her own illicit relationship. The two women devise an elaborate scheme involving marriage, pregnancy, and a new life, while Amsterdam is swept up in speculation over the tulip market.
Is It Any Good?
Two stars means the film’s limited strengths do not overcome its weaknesses. The street scenes sometimes have an impressive bustle, but their repeated use of the same few locations becomes distracting. The overall enterprise feels claustrophobic and stage-bound.
The dialogue is heavy-handed, and the movie is too threadbare to be entertaining. Christoph Waltz gives Cornelis the most sympathetic presence as a husband responding to painful discoveries, but the central romance is not compelling enough to carry the film.
The Worldview
TULIP FEVER presents a mixed moral world. It shows secret affairs, elaborate deception, and selfishness, but it also shows that these actions are wrong and have consequences. Cornelis’s response to his wife’s betrayal becomes the film’s strongest moral element: he forgives her even though their marriage ends, then shows charity toward Maria and her child.
The film’s view of marriage is uneven. The central marriage is joyless, with sexual relations treated as a chore, while the illicit affairs are presented with apparent happiness. Yet the movie ultimately shows marriage as capable of happiness under the right circumstances. Its message that the human heart and its emotions should not be sold as a commodity is worthwhile, though the film’s graphic sexual content seriously compromises that message.
Christian prayer appears several times, including thanksgiving for Cornelis’s generosity. The convent is shown both as a place that saves young girls from homelessness and as an institution where an elderly nun behaves greedily and calculatingly. The film’s final movement toward forgiveness reflects the biblical call to mercy: “be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32).
The Content Guide
The specifics — spoilers included by nature — so you can judge for your own family.
Content Summary
Mixed worldview with pagan, Christian, moral elements where a woman in engages in a secret affair and concocts an elaborate scheme involving several others in order to flee her marriage, but when her husband finds out, he ultimately offers a touchingly strong sense of forgiveness toward her even as their marriage ends, there are a few scenes of Christian prayer (including one thanking a man for his graciousness toward another family), the consequences of sinfulness are discussed briefly, an elderly nun who leads a convent is shown to be overly stern, greedy and calculating in trying to make money off valuable tulips, but her convent is also shown as saving young girls’ lives from being homeless and penniless, and [SPOILER] adulterous wife eventually becomes a nun; no obscenities or profanities; no violence; adulterous and premarital sex depicted graphically in at least three scenes, there are numerous innuendo references by the cheated-upon husband to his genitals (such as saying his “little soldier is ready”), and a “women’s doctor” is implied trying to take inappropriate liberties with women during his examinations but gets humorously slapped for trying; upper and rear female nudity and upper and rear male nudity in several scenes; a character gives up his battle against alcoholism and engages in wild drunkenness, although there are major consequences for this behavior; no smoking or drugs; and, strong miscellaneous immorality involves elaborate deception and scheming to cover up the two sexual affairs depicted in the movie and include showing no regard for the emotional feelings of the cheated-upon husband, the central marriage is shown to be joyless, and its sexual relations as a chore to be endured by the wife, while her affair and an affair between her unmarried housemaid and the maid’s lover are shown with joy, another woman marries her illicit lover, but they seem to have a happy marriage with multiple children, and they give thanks to God for the husband of the other woman and his generosity, a character is shown giving up, the tulip-market financial speculations are greedy and cutthroat throughout the movie.
Talk About It
Questions for the drive home, the dinner table, or the youth group.
Cornelis responds to betrayal with forgiveness, even though the marriage ends. What does Christian forgiveness require, and what does it not require?
Ephesians 4:32 · Colossians 3:13The film shows deception producing consequences. Why can a secret seem like an escape while making a situation worse?
Luke 8:17 · Numbers 32:23The story contrasts a joyless marriage with relationships formed outside marriage. What does Scripture say marriage is meant to be?
Genesis 2:24 · Hebrews 13:4The film treats tulip speculation as greedy and cutthroat. When does ambition become greed?
Luke 12:15 · 1 Timothy 6:9–10The Final Word
TULIP FEVER offers a few meaningful thoughts about forgiveness and charity, but its heavy-handed filmmaking and graphic sexual content overwhelm them. For your family and your own viewing, SKIP IT.
