I'm going to admit it. When I first heard people talking about The Artist, I wrote it off as a blatant Oscar grab, the kind of movie that plays right into the Academy. You know, the kind of movie that usually involves Hillary Swank. We've had "talkies" and color film for almost a century now, so the idea of going back just didn't seem right. I get that it takes a bit more acting talent to pull off a silent movie than a sound film, and I believe I talk about that during my discussion of Nosferatu last October, but I'd rather listen to the actors' voices than sit there with an orchestral score playing in the background.
When the credits started rolling I started paying attention, because I wasn't liking what I saw: Penelope Ann Miller, who is famous (in my own mind) for her roles in The Goonies and Kindergarten Cop, but she's not exactly who I'd have gone for in casting a movie that was always going to get Academy attention. Ditto John Goodman, Missi Pyle, and well, just about every B-lister on the cast roster. By the time the credits were done and the movie started, I was frowning and I looking around to see if'n I'd gotten beamed aboard the U.S.S. W.T.F. Unfortunately not.
Five minutes later, I was kind of in love. It helps a lot that I think Berenice Bejo bears a striking resemblance to Rachel McAdams, but there wasn't anything I found terribly distasteful about the movie. It has a few problems, but nothing that kept me from seeing why people have been in orgasmic apoplexy about this. I suspect it was the dressing room scene that really won me over, because it was the first time where I laughed out loud. The good news is that it wasn't the last.
It wasn't all good. I found the story to be ridiculously predictable (even in the details) and even considering the romantic comedy formula that was strictly followed. Some of the plot points were things I'd seen in a million other movies, and I would have probably liked this better if it had been a talkie, because if my lip reading is any good, the "dialogue" would have been even funnier than the facial expressions and physical comedy. I hope this doesn't start some sort of retro wave, but once in a while, this makes for a nice change.
