Onegin:  drama.  Starring Ralph Fiennes, Liv Tyler, Toby Stephens, Lena Headey, Martin Donovan, Harriet Walter and Irene Worth.  Screenplay by Peter Ettedgui and Michael Ignatieff. Directed by Martha Fiennes.  Based upon the poem by Alexander Pushkin.  Unrated.  Now playing at Embarcadero One Cinema.

If only vast sweeping vistas of snow and the elegant trappings of 19^th Century St. Petersburg were enough, if only the careful attention to costume and social more sufficed to complete this tale of death, denial and unrequited love. As it stands Onegin falls short despite being overly laden with such imagery of love and loss in the high Russian aristocratic style.

Onegin opens with the titular hero at play in the decadence of his class -- Evgeny Onegin is at the opera with two like-minded chums. Together, they dabble at chasing women and drink amongst other pastimes of the landed gentry.  Onegin is soon informed of his ailing uncle's need to see him and so he is whisked by coach with man servant at his side in time to be too late: his uncle is laid out in a casket in the vast hall of his manor.  Much to Onegin's bewildered indifference, the will is read and he is heir to both his uncle's fortune and estate. This heralds the action of the rest of the film: Onegin's subsequent move to the countryside to dwell in his uncle's villa where he shortly meets the open-hearted but somewhat dim Vladimir Lensky, his neighbor on the adjacent estate. Soon he is acquainted with all of the neighbors in his new surrounding, among them Lensky's Olga, his fiancée, and her sister, the idealistic, Tatyana Larina, who takes an instant fascination with Evgeny, imbuing him with qualities most unsuited to his more obvious charms of slacking and dispassionate social grace.

From this point on, the film, already lacking in sufficient character development despite Fienne's uncanny ability to communicate nuances of his character simply by flaring a nostril, goes even further afield in an attempt to set up a tragedy in the grand old style. Evgeny deflects Tatyana's overtures and refuses her love.  Then without missing a beat, Evgeny proceeds to insult Lensky's fiancée, inadvertently of course; he simply is himself and cannot resist characterizing Olga's charms as provincial. The sour smell of inevitability hanging in the air, now a duel cannot be avoided. Lensky calls Onegin out, and the tragedy willingly unfolds. But rather than use this as an opportunity to more fully explore Evgeny's growing conflict -- (is it one of class that prevents him from succumbing to true passion in his life?), Onegin flies along at rapid pace, separating Evgeny and Tatyana with an awkward time transition that spans an indeterminate amount of years.  The ensuing plot line is plodding and unevenly paced, the ultimate goal of tragedy never far from the lips of the characters.

Unlike Fiennes, who can invoke the presence of Russian aristocracy with an even gaze, Liv Tyler's Tatyana is lacking in the same depth. She is unable to adequately conjure the spirit of Tatyana -- her desire for Evgeny seems to come from nowhere and ultimately go nowhere.  Her fits of temper or passion seem to be induced from some force of will, rather than organically through the story. The last minutes of this film were something of a void, with the viewer paradoxically left wondering "this can't be the end" and "when is this over?"  Tragically, Onegin fails to resonate.