I found the first half of the movie hard to get through, and my wife actually gave up and went to sleep by the time 40 minutes had passed. I agree that the characters need more depth, and also that there needed to be a clearer time frame.

I felt that lots superfluous day to day activity was included could have been taken out to make more time for character development without needing to add more time to the film. An alternative would have been to take some of the story out of the characters that didn't add to much to the story of what happened. While there is a clear outcome to the film that a watcher could be expected to cheer for, the watcher isn't given much reason to do so based on the lack of character development that happens.

I think this is labeled as a drama, as that's the closest genre that could reasonably be given. There is obviously from the cover some romance involved, but not much. The character development problems also make it feel as though there isn't much drama involved.

If you enjoy the Victorian era, and also like a drama/romance that paints wide panorama of it's story, without too much detail, I feel this is the movie for you.

I gave this movie a six, but that easily could have been a seven if that first half of the film hadn't been so hard to suffer through. I feel the premise of the film could have achieved an 8 with better character development, and that is coming from someone that whose favorite genre's are sci-fi and romantic comedies.