Wonderful costumes and great sceneries. The plot - acceptable. The acting - poor and dull. All actors have the same tone in all situations, the same mimic, no gestures. They're like robots. No body language, no voice inflections at all. Like a drawled song. In the second half I managed to get used to those dialogues, but at the beginning they sound quite ridiculous. And fake. Not one natural reaction or conversation in the entire movie. Maybe this is because of the way people were back then - very calculated and calm. But there are several ways of being calculated and I think the characters chose the wrong one.
Review of The Countess
