There's such a rich motherload of material in this story, and Potter blends in lovely images and music, so it seems cruel to complain about the way the film is made. But the production design strikes the wrong chord early on--nothing seems quite real or lived-in. It's contrived perfection with every stick of furniture and every bit of set decoration exactly where you'd expect it to be, even in the tumbledown Gypsy camp. And there are problems with the accents too--almost ridiculous cartoon dialects that are eventually transcended by these fine actors, but only barely. (Depp also has to overcome a bad fake tan.) All of these things conspire to undermine the film, making it feel artificial and stilted just when it should be moving us to tears along with all the male characters.