Love in the Time of Cholera half century between 1880 and 1930. The city's "steamy and sleepy streets, rat-infested sewers, old slave quarter, decaying colonial architecture, and multifarious inhabitants" are mentioned variously in the text and mingle amid the lives of the characters. Locations within the story include: Some critics choose to consider "Love in the Time of Cholera" as a sentimental story about the enduring power of true love. Others criticize this opinion as being too simple. García Márquez himself said in an interview, "you have to be careful not to fall into my trap." This is manifested by Ariza's excessively romantic attitude toward life,
Love in the Time of Cholera (film) never understand the ardor of those who have — at least not based on all the hammy traipsing and coupling and scene-hopping thrown together here." In the "Los Angeles Times", Carina Chocano stated, "the novel has made it to the screen in the form of a plodding, tone-deaf, overripe, overheated Oscar baiting telenovela ... Doubtless it's an enormously daunting task to adapt a book at once so sweeping and internal, so swooningly romantic and philosophical, but it takes a lighter touch and a more expansive view than Newell and Harwood seem to bring." A song written for the film by