There have been some bad reviews circulated about the film, but nobody knows good fluff like Stephanie Zacharek, so I'll definitely see it in the theater.

Casanova is one of the great underrated writers in the history of the world. It's a pity to his majestic three tome oeuvre The History of My Life turned into candyfloss.

Seek out the original books in their full version. The Venice episodes are largely covered in tome one. The definitive edition is Robert Laffont and edited by Francis Lacassin. This version is in French. Although a native Venetian, Casanova's preferred literary language was French. In the 18th century, French had a similar international reach to English now.

Casanova's style is very sharp and modern so if you read French it's worth seeking out the original.

There are many free English language versions available online. The most attractive to read is http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/c/casanova/

As far as I know all of the English language versions online and offline are drawn from expurgated and/or edited versions of the original (many English versions came via edited early German versions of the manuscript) so it's not worth spending a lot of money on dress editions of what is anything but a complete or accurate text.

and it was WONDERFUL!!! It's incredibly funny, and everyone in it is a joy to watch (Stephanie forgets Tim McInnerny from Blackadder, playing Casanova's exasperated "protector"). It may not be true to life, but it has a crazy Shakespearean gender-bending mix-up of identities that's fairly intelligent and fun to follow. It's definitely a great date movie. And I cried at the end. It's silly. I loved it.

This is far from "wholly enjoyable." It's very uneven in terms of tone, with many scenes feeling as if they were inspired by Tom Jones, while others feel like ersatz Harlequin romance, still others a Venetian version of Porky's, and some of it is just high camp. It's a slumgullion of a movie, lurching from one joke or set-up to another, and never maintains the speed and sharpness a farce needs to work. These characters are a bit too logy; someone should have set a metronome going during rehearsals. Casanova is my biggest disappointment of the winter movie season.