Comedy and tragedy. That coin has been flipped time and again with Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton to the plethora of comics that we have today.
However, once in a while, we see the coin sanded down until the coin is blank. Upon that coin we see a new face take the stage.
In this review, our bubbly, comical heroine, Fannie Brice and the tragic, yet charming love interest Nick Arnstein are the faces of our coin.
Story/Dialogue: Seeing well rounded characters traverse a world and turning it upside down is a pleasure to watch. Seeing those well rounded characters pushed to their limits and then broken is even better. The dialogue is witty, if somewhat wordy. However, there are reasons for this. (To mention those would be spoilery, so I won't.) Furthermore, we see the story arc transition really well. The end found me feeling empty as though I had just screamed in fury and frustration through the last part of the movie. But the fact that this movie evoked emotion from me play a big part in the scoring of this film.
Cinematography: One word summarises this entire movie. Lavish. From the background designs to colour choices to sets, everything was rich in colour. One of the things I loved was the progression of the glow that they put on Franny which correlated to her love of Nick. It was framed well with the characters rarely sitting directly in the middle of the frame. The lights gave it a certain charm that I hadn't really seen in other classics, either. If compared to the Gatsby film by Luhrmann, this film would be a grand in its softness, much the same as Julie Andrews portrays herself. Gatsby by comparison would be grand and loud about it, so more along the lines of Taylor Swift.
Audio: Given that there were musical elements (stage theatre,) it's no big surprise that the audio had to be top notch. I found myself asking where the heck they put the boom mics to get such wonderful clarity of sound. Unless they recorded the sound and swapped out the poorer quality afterwards. Honestly though, the audio was easy on the ears and didn't clash anywhere.
Overall: When I watch a movie I find myself grossly immersed in a story. So much so that often I find it difficult to analyse it critically. However, the story here was so simple that I could invest myself while still looking at it objectively.
Fannie Brice is an underdog who you can't help but root for. Nick is a charming, suave and arrogant bastard you can't help but love. Each of the other characters, while only playing minor roles, feel larger than life and as a result make the two feel that much bigger by comparison.
With this in mind, I cannot give this movie anything less than 5 stars.
Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!
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