Tulip Fever

A period film set in seventeenth-century Amsterdam. Sophia was taken from an orphanage and married to a wealthy merchant. He expects a child of her and it does not happen. A young painter is called in to paint the household's portrait, and a relationship begins between them. To run away they need money. The fastest way to wealth at the time is the tulip bulb trade: prices have reached unimaginable levels, people are selling their houses to buy bulbs, and a market that works like an exchange has grown up. The painter enters it. The background is real: the tulip mania in the seventeenth-century Netherlands is cited in economic history as one of the first speculative bubbles. The source is Deborah Moggach's novel; Tom Stoppard also contributed to the screenplay. The production history is more interesting than the film. It was to be shot first in 2004 and was cancelled days beforehand when British tax rules changed. It restarted ten years later, and after completion its release was postponed several times. Alicia Vikander plays Sophia, Dane DeHaan the painter and Christoph Waltz the merchant. An interesting subject for anyone who likes period films and economic history. On the narrative side the film struggles to join the love line to the trading line, and that was the main objection from critics.