The film still generates a certain amount of fascination as it transforms into a melodramatic love story, though I missed the imagination and historical sweep that defined the first half.

It will probably break your heart in all the wrong ways.

If our understanding of the losses these characters have suffered feels incomplete, it's hard to come away entirely unaffected as these men and women look back at their young adulthood and the whirlwind of historical change against which it played out.

Achieving a vibrant mix of swooning sincerity and bitter irony...