"Winter's Tale" tells the story of a thief, a consumptive heiress, and a sentient magical white horse, but, really, it is the story of New York City in Helprin's imagination, a place like the one in reality but with some strange alterations. The Hudson freezes solid for miles, and people set up tent cities along the ice. There is a frozen magical town up-river where time takes on strange qualities. There is a whirling mysterious white cloud-wall that surrounds the island of Manhattan, a cloud-wall that everyone accepts to such a degree that no one notices it anymore. What is the cloud-wall? What does it signify? The wall is gone in Goldsman's version. In the book, it is the whole point-the reason for everything. Goldsman has missed the point of the book entirely.
One leaves the novel reluctantly. One leaves the film with great relief that it is over.
One leaves the novel reluctantly. One leaves the film with great relief that it is over.