The Lovers played in theaters earlier this year but don’t be surprised if you’ve never heard of it.  I hadn’t heard of it until I came across it on Showtime.  The Lovers — much like Veronika Decides To Die — is one of those films that spent a while sitting on the shelf until it was almost grudgingly granted an extremely limited theatrical run.  With little publicity and no critical support, The Lovers came and went and now it’s been relegated to cable and Netflix.

And watching The Lovers last night, I could see why some studios might be hesitant about it.  The Lovers is an amazingly messy film, one that seems to randomly careen from tone to tone.  Sometimes, it’s a romance.  Sometimes, it’s an adventure film.  Sometimes, it’s an attack on colonialism disguised as a history lesson.  And then, occasionally, it’s even a science fiction film.  It’s perhaps the messiest mishmash of themes since Cloud Atlas and that’s saying something!

And yet, despite all that, I still liked The Lovers.  In many ways, I enjoyed the film despite some of my better instincts.  I’m still not sure what the Hell’s going on in 50% of the film and don’t even get me started on trying to explain how the film’s multiple story lines are supposed to be connected.  There’s so much that I could criticize about this film and yet, when it was over, I was not at all unhappy about having taken the time to watch it.

The story … well, it’s a little bit hard to explain.  The film begins with a God-like being forging twin rings.  We then jump forward a few centuries, to the year 2020.  Two marine archeologists, Jay (Josh Hartnett) and his wife, Laura (Tasmin Egerton), are exploring the sunken wreck of a colonial British ship.  In the wreckage, they comes across the two rings.  They mention that someone named “D.E.” drowned while clutching onto the rings.  When Laura gets trapped under some debris, Jay rescues her but ends up brain dead as a result.  In a generically futuristic hospital, Laura has to decide whether to use machines to keep Jay alive or to let him go.

However, we don’t see much of Laura and Jay in that hospital.  This is because, after Jay goes into his coma, the film’s other storyline starts up.  Suddenly, we’re in India.  The year is 1778 and Josh Hartnett is playing a Scottish captain in the British East India Company.  When we first see Hartnett, we naturally assume that he’s playing the mysterious “D.E.” but instead, we learn that this character is named James Stewart.

(It’s not much of a spoiler to let you know right now that we never learn exactly who D.E. was or why he or she drowned with the rings.)

At first, I assumed that Jay was dreaming about being James and that the India storyline was meant to run parallel to the 2020 storyline.  That, however, quickly turned out to not be the case.  My next guess was that James was meant to be Jay in a past life and I still think that’s a possibility.  But the fact of the matter is that the film itself never makes clear how James and Jay are related or even why we’re seeing both of their stories.  In general, I like films that are willing to be ambiguous but The Lovers took it a bit too far.

James is assigned to escort an Indian princess to the capital city.  Along the way, James has to protect her from both rebels and assassins.  He also falls in love with one of the queen’s warriors, the beautiful Tulaja Naik (Bipasha Basu).

It’s the scenes set in India that make The Lovers worth watching.  Full of opulent palaces, gorgeous costumes, fierce battles, and sexy chemistry between Josh Hartnett and Bipasha Basu, these scenes are a visual feast.  Even if they don’t always make much sense, they’re fun to watch.  When The Lovers concentrates on India, it’s the epitome of an enjoyably over-the-top romantic melodrama.  It’s only when the film leaves India for the near future or those Godly ring forgers that its inherent messiness becomes a problem.

In the end, The Lovers is not as bad as you might think.  Just enjoy it as a visual treat and don’t worry about making sense of it all.