Generally when a movie languishes in studio scheduling limbo for years, it doesn’t bode well for its chances at the box office — and when that movie ends up sneaking into theaters during a soft end-of-summer weekend, those odds drop even further. On the other hand,
Tulip Fever has more than a few things in its favor, including a period plot steeped in forbidden love, a prestige cast that balances veteran stars like
Dame Judi Dench and
Christoph Waltz against up-and-comers like Alicia Vikander, Dane DeHaan, and
Cara Delevingne, and a behind-the-scenes pedigree that includes a screenplay from Oscar winner
Tom Stoppard and music by
Danny Elfman. All of which is to say that this tale of a 17th-century painter (DeHaan) who develops a hankering for the married young woman he’s been hired to paint (Vikander) could have a lot more to offer than its long trip to the box office might suggest; unfortunately, we don’t yet have enough to go on to have an idea of which way critics are going to lean on
Tulip Fever. While we wait for more reviews to roll in, how about a round of Guess the Tomatometer?