Tulip Fever’ Employment Issues

CHICAGOLAWBULLETIN.COM FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2017

Volume 163, No. 175 Serving Chicago’s legal community for 162 years

“We just need to put everything on one bulb.” On the exchange floor, it’s clear Visuals eclipse that every stratum of Dutch so- ciety mingles in the grimy casino milieu where pedigrees to exotic RE B E C CA flower bulbs are auctioned. L. FORD We root for this reverse-Cin- storytelling in derella romance because we are supposed to, not because it’s easy. Rebecca L. Ford is counsel at Scharf Cornelis may be a “fatuous wind- Banks Marmor LLC, and concentrates her practice on complex litigation, compliance, b a g , ”but Jan has creditors pound- board governance and specialized ing at his door, and his Falstaffian ‘Tulip Fever’ employment issues. She is the former buddy Gerrit’s (Zach Galifanakis) executive vice president for litigation and unreliability is epic. intellectual property at MGM. She can be Tom Stoppard, the playwright reached at [email protected]. who wrote “Shakespeare in Love,” Play invokes the best of Flemish visual art, adapted the screenplay. With its missions Jan Van Loos (Dane De- missed connections, convent in- but the corniest of Hollywood plot devices Haan), an artist who is equal to trigue and deus ex machina end- his wife in youth and beauty, to ing, “Tulip Fever”reflects the paint the couple’s portraits. B a r d ’s influence, as well as the n the Dutch Golden Age of She arrived barefoot, and now You see where this is going. farces and morality plays popular the 17th century, Amsterdam Sophia leaves the orphanage in a The lovers take the woozy, ro- in the period. was the richest city in Eu- carriage. Her duty is clear: She mantic risks that caused “T i t a n - Yet the story lies flat, and is rope. The Dutch Masters must produce an heir. ic”-loving high schoolers to swoon. entirely eclipsed by the look of the dominated the European art But after three years of mar- (This film has an R rating, com- film. Iscene, and the speculative market riage, the couple can’t seem to pared to “Titanic’s”u s e r - f r i e n d l i e r Rich and handsome, it is the in tulip futures expanded wantonly. conceive. Cornelis’c r i n g e - w o r t h y PG-13, excluding a portion of its m o v i e ’s production design (Simon By virtue of the Dutch East In- bedside practice of noisily using target audience.) Elliott), not its flaccid exposition, dia Co.’s spice trade, the Nether- the chamber pot, then rolling over If discovered, the affair will be that makes us giddy. lands was an economic superpow- to inform her that his “little sol- plenty peperduur for everyone in- Using the painterly signatures er. Pepper was king. Even today, dier”is “standing at attention” v o l v e d . of the period–deep Rembrandt Netherlanders use the word d o e s n ’t help. Sophia and Jan resolve to run umbers, exquisite Vermeer inte- peperduur — “as expensive as Essentially alone, the young away, bankrolling their happily-ev- riors and boisterous Hals peasant pepper”—to indicate high cost. wife bonds with the street-smart er-after through a convoluted plan scenes, “Tulip Fever”is packed Cornelis Sandvoort (Christoph with artistic and historic refer- Waltz), the pepper merchant at e n ce s . the center of the Weinstein Co.’s Rich and handsome, it is the movie’s production It is a visual love letter to a richly designed period romance time and place Americans rarely “Tulip Fever”is one of Amster- design ... not its flaccid exposition, that consider, and would be comple- d a m’s wealthiest men. mented with a visit to the Dutch When he procures a beautiful makes us giddy. Masters in Gallery 213 of the Art teenaged bride, the orphaned Institute of Chicago. That way you Sophia (Alicia Vikander), from the housemaid, Maria (Holliday that involves speculating in the can dreamily contemplate its pipe-smoking, tulip-trading, cere- Grainger), at whose hands she tulip market. Devoting themselves careful detail as your mind wan- monially titled Abbess of St. Ur- learns that the power imbalance to the study of tulip futures, they ders away from the dopey plot sula (Judi Dench), the three par- between the idle and the ambi- learn the price of rare, striped and bad choices made by starry- ties to the transaction are each tious does not work in her favor. tulips —breakers —rises at the eyed adolescents. satisfied they have benefited from Sophia patiently endures her fastest rate. So they borrow to Think of it as “Rembrandt in the bargain. confinement until Cornelis com- implement their foolproof scheme: L o v e . ”