Review of Barry Lyndon (1975) by Jochen W — 30 Jan 2010

They rarely make movies like this any more. And if they do, they tend to have some kind of quirky or quaint twist to them. Forrest Gump, Benjamin Button, ... telling a life story as a chronicle of sorts tends to come with magical realist overtones, or some other element of quaintness.

Barry Lyndon is more traditional than that. It is the kind of movie that has an intermission. The score is largely classical, rather than classicesque. There is a wink in the eye and irony about many things, but the many shots of gently undulating English landscape seem to be in earnest. To be honest, a costume drama in English landscape telling a life chronicle sounds like a recipe for a movie I would never voluntarily watch. I did rent it because it's a Kubrick, and because I always thought this was a tongue in cheek effort of sorts.

The narration, which has almost fairy tale tones to it, and the quick start, do create an atmosphere of amusement and fun and energy. The music adds a gentle lolling story-telly-kind of sleepiness to it. Unfortunately, this film does not wish to stay a comedy - it is half comedy, half tragedy, and two thirds padding. If that makes more than a whole, it's because this feels like more than one movie, in length as well as tone.

I don't really want to give any of the story away - it's about a young man growing up, and the rise and fall of his fortunes. Particulars are irrelevant. Unfortunately, the young man is played by Ryan O'Neal, who looks the same age throughout the film, whether he is playing a teenager or a man past his prime. His facial expression is similarly constant, seemingly frozen in place. As he travels through his life, he meets various other characters, some amusing, some charismatic, others forgettable.

Despite the movie's length, there seem to be obvious gaps. For example, I have no idea why Barry was any good as a fighter, even when he was supposed to be young.

As for the key question - do we empathise with the hero? Yes and no. He is neither the adventurous, go-getter tongue in cheek adventurer that I expected, not the upright hero. He isn't a cad or coward. He has all of those ingredients in his character, but in doses just small enough to be inoffensive and almost a little bland. Perhaps we are supposed to empathise all the more with him for being a bit mundane, but for me, it just made him a bit boring to watch.

After the three hours were over, I could not help feeling that, while Barry might have deserved a better outcome, the audience definitely deserved a better, more colourful story. In the end, this is just a boring, long, chronicly costume drama with a slightly quaint narrator and one or two gently amusing sidekicks in the middle.