It has been a long time since I've seen a movie that had so much potential and then delivered so little of that potential. The gap between the acting talent on the screen, the story, and the direction were marked and obvious even to someone to like me, who is far closer to "fan" than to "critic." This is... the epic version of the romance movie. It's a little long, filled with dull components, but uses sweeping scenery and an emotional musical score in order to help you forget that. When I was a kid, my grandmother would occasionally sing the lyrics to "An Affair to Remember," and I never put two and two together until I heard Deborah Kerr do her rendition of the song.
There are some wonderful performances here. Deborah Kerr was outstanding, and I watched this movie with a bit of a yearning for those days when (I know, I know, I've ranted about this before on more than one occasion since this project began) our actors had actual talent in addition to a pretty face. I'm not a huge fan of musicals, but I remember reactions to movies like Sweeney Todd, Moulin Rouge, and Nine: equal mixtures of awe and suprise, and only 50 years ago, we would have expected something like this. I liked her in this even more than I liked her just a few days ago in From Here To Eternity, and my enjoyment of THAT movie was considerable. Cary Grant was good, for the most part, but I'm recognizing similarities in his performances. It seems to me that all of his leading man roles are basically the same, and I'm forced to wonder if what we see on screen was more or less what we'd see if we knew him in real life. Charm is nice, but someone who is always (or mostly always) charming starts to tarnish a bit. Despite the great leading couple, it was a relatively small role that caught my attention. Cathleen Nesbitt, playing Grant's grandmother, was so endearing in that "little old lady" way. Every scene she was in was one in which she stole the show, and she was my favorite role in this film.
There are a lot of reasons to dislike this movie, but they can almost all be found rooted within the poor direction. I found a few additional glaring continuity errors, such as the improbability that a man with the name Nicolo, who was American, might have a French-speaking grandmother. It might be a judgment call, but it is unlikely that we'd find that combination of events in real life. There are a few things in the film that I'm betting were ad-libbed, such as the second restaurant scene and the exchange in French between Kerr and Grant. It took me a second (and a quick flip of the back button) to make sure I actually heard what was said. There's no translation provided, but trust me, it's pretty funny.
So this movie has some moments, but they're few and far between. For me this was enjoyable, but I'm not going to say it's something that's a must-see, although I would watch this again.
