Fresh Reviews: "The Artist"

Rated PG-13, which is absolutely absurd. This movie barely deserves a straight PG. There's some smoking and drinking by characters who obviously would smoke and drink, but it's not controversial or exploitative at all. Kids will enjoy it.

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Or, "Singing In The Rain: The Remake". Seriously. Anybody who's seen "Singing In The Rain" will have a serious case of Deja Vu while watching "The Artist", which has so many parallels you might think you're watching the same movie at times. That, along with a few other movies to which it has more than a few similarities (including "A Star Is Born"), are just barely enough to keep me from being QUITE as enthusiastic about this film as the critics who are calling it one of the greatest comedies of the past decade and a surefire Oscar nominee. However, it also has plenty of charm, humor, and heart and I definitely enjoyed my time in the theatre watching it. No doubt about it, a thumbs up.

It's the story of George Valentin, a legendary silent film star, who co-stars in his latest movie with a fan who happened to accidentally step into a photo with him and got a lot of publicity from the event. At which point SHE begins to rocket to the top in her own starring vehicles, while Valentin hits a brick wall due to his stuborness in refusing to see the new "talkie" films as anything more than a fad ("People don't need to hear me speak"), and continues making silent movies that nobody goes to see. Valentin sinks to the bottom as Peppy Miller rises to the top... but is there still a way that Peppy, who has been coming more and more towards a personal as well as professional appreciation for Valentin, can salvage his career?

Scenes, lines of dialogue, situations from "Singing In The Rain"... they're all here. I don't seriously think that writer/director Michael Hazanavicius was attempting to just ride on "Singing In The Rain"'s coat tails... I do believe, though, that he might not have been fully aware that his film was bordering on crossing the line between homage and imitation. And the "his career is falling while hers is rising" storyline from "A Star Is Born" is equally familiar. But the film IS more than just that, thankfully. Chief among the differences is the fact that "The Artist" actually IS a (almost entirely) silent film (with musical soundtrack), and more than any other movie made about the pioneering days of film really does give you an accurate feel for what the old silent classics were like, and what the performers were like both as regular people and as stars.

In spite of the familiar moments, there are moments from time to time that are incredibly inventive, too, and I absolutely loved a nightmarish dream sequence in which Valentin has to face his fears about the coming of sound. He (and the audience) suddenly HEARS the sound of a glass he puts down on a desk, of the leg of his chair when it moves across the floor, of his dog barking. His reaction: he starts to panic and opens his mouth to let out the loudest scream he can: but no sound at all comes out. Now, if that's not a creative way of showing the character's fears I don't know what is, and the films also benefits from truly charming performances from Jean Dujardin as Valentin and Berenice Bejo as Peppy... it's much easier to adjust to a familiar story line when the peformers are so charming and innocent that you actually care about them. It must have been especially difficult for Dujardin to come across as charming and innocent since his character has such a large ego, but he does it, and does it well.

A few familiar American faces are also present in the film, including John Goodman as a famous film director and James Cromwell of "Babe" as Valentin's butler/valet, but as good as they are, they don't really make that much impact on the movie... I'm guessing they might be there mainly to reassure audiences that this is indeed an American movie and not a French one (in spite of the French film makers and stars behind it), since it's going to be difficult enough to get modern audiences to see a silent, black & white movie. The real star of the film, other than Dujardin and Bejo, is Valentin's dog (played by, according to the credits, "Uggy"). If anyone is old enough to remember Lassie communicating all kinds of danger and warnings with just a few barks will be impressed by Uggy's amazing deeds here... he leaves Lassie in the shade. And he's cute, too.

Is charm, sweetness and innocence enough to carry an entire film without (for the most part) tremendous originality? Well, more often than not it isn't, but "The Artist" manages easily. What with some lovely performances, some clever gags, a real feel for a bygone era and style of movie making, and a clear desire to entertain, "The Artist" is a real charmer. I suspect that audiences who aren't familiar with the movies that it echoes will enjoy it even more, but a person would have to be a real scrooge of a moviegoer not to enjoy it... I laughed, smiled a lot when I wasn't outright laughing, and found it easy to appreciate the work of its creators. And at least it certainly isn't like any other movie in theatres right now. Gotta give it points for that.