I feel that I was born in the wrong generation to properly enjoy George Cukor's My Fair Lady. Oh, I can appreciate it. Cukor's musical adaption of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion contains great musical numbers, flawless acting (particularly from the always stunning Audrey Hepburn), and beautiful sets and costumes. But here's the thing: it feels like a musical made several decades ago. It definitely shows its age. I've seen musicals by Busby Berkeley and Gene Kelly that have stood the test of time better. And here's the worst part: I can't quite put my finger on why. Another cinematic adaptation of Shaw's play, Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard's Pygmalion (1938), feels infinitely more fresh and timeless. But I suppose I should discuss the film itself now. My Fair Lady follows Henry Higgins, a grouchy phonetics professor, as he undertakes a bet that he can teach a Cockney street urchin, Eliza Doolittle (Hepburn), how to speak proper English. Higgins originally sees Eliza as nothing more than a subject in an experiment and treats her cruelly. But as old grumps are wont to do in musicals, he slowly comes to love Eliza despite her origin. It is a good film, but not necessarily a great film, in my opinion. It stays too long, outwears its welcome, and leaves me feeling indifferent. I guess that it doesn't help when you consider that the two songs that I enjoyed the most were "With a Little Bit of Luck" and "Get Me To the Church on Time." Let's be frank for a second...neither song is essential to the plot as they deal with Eliza's father, the drunkard Alfred. In fact, come to think of it, Alfred's entire subplot, which easily takes up 20-30 minutes of screen-time, is unnecessary to the plot. Maybe that's why I didn't connect with My Fair Lady: I'm used to the more tight and compact interpretations that I had previously seen. My Fair Lady is indeed a good film. But it wasn't one that I particularly enjoyed.
7/10
0 Yorumlar