There are echoes here of Spike Lee’s fizzy Aristophanes riff “Chi-Raq” in its application of yellowed scholarly texts to a fraught, fragmented urban American landscape - though the allegory here is too unspecific, and the cinematic language too restrained, to punch us between the eyes.Īt the outset, “Ovid and the Art of Love” would appear to be a poetic primer for teens, the kind of film that comes as a godsend to harried literature teachers even if it fancies itself more down with the kids than it really is. The result isn’t dull, but it’s unclear at any point whether “Ovid and the Art of Love” is pitching its subject to high school students, college students or more esoterically inclined enthusiasts. The film positions him as a smooth-talking player who also happens to be dourly serious about his art and its political impact: expanded from an earlier short, von Hoffman’s script dedicates itself to the notion of “practical poetry” by mixing its more solemn academic lines of inquiry with goofier strains of modern whimsy. This is an Ovid, then, who wears Converse chucks and a hoodie over his hessian robes - as one might just about expect from any ancient Roman poet played by springy, likable “High School Musical” alumnus Corbin Bleu.
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