Review of Fiddler on the Roof (1971) by Dylan P — 26 Jun 2008

This is not a bad movie. In fact, it's quite good. So many of those Broadway to big screen transitions don't end up this good, probably because the source material isn't worth filming. Oddly, my usual complaint with the Broadway-musical-turned-movie genre is that things feel too slick, that everything is too commercial, and yet I like this movie, the very definition of prepackaged.

There are some huge problems with this movie. I don't mind the length, but the pacing feels off. The first half of the movie is dedicated to the first daughter to be married, and the last two stories feel shoehorned in. I think the girls' stories should've been more woven together, rather than three separate arcs that follow each other in quick succession. The translation to the screen is extremely literal. Watching the movie, you felt you could imagine exactly how that scene was played in the theatre. The director didn't really take advantage of having a different medium in which to tell this story. In some small ways he tries, but it at times felt like the director didn't really understand film.

But I love this movie none-the-less. The pathos and the humor both ring true, and though I don't particularly like this type of music, there is joy here.

The character development was nice, in my opinion. Tevye and his wife are both fun to watch, and you feel by the end of the movie that you understand them. The matchmaker made me laugh out loud at several points, but most of the other characters are in the background.

The oldest daughter and her match are played well, and they feel like well-rounded people. Their story is a nice lead-in to the rest of the movie, even if most of what they do is beg and look tortured/ecstatically happy.

The second daughter's story is somewhat different. I like this story better, but the acting isn't as good. The girl plays her part well, and makes the most of what is essentially a stereotype, but her match leaves something to be desired. While he is good, he doesn't rise above the typical radical Marxist character. That said, it's not a bad thread.

The third daughter's story has bigger problems and bigger virtues. Chava is not an interesting character. She is "kind", and that's her one character trait. She's not played very well in early scenes, with a look of wide-eyed wonder that makes her look like a sick calf. Her match is so poorly developed, it will make your head spin. We see them fall in love in precisely one scene, the scene where they first meet, and he pops up later after they decide they want to marry. He seems, as he describes himself, pleasant, but you don't really get a sense of how much Chava loves him. I don't buy that she would break her father's heart over this boy. I think it might've been more interesting to have her stay with her Jewish heritage and abandon the boy she loved. But, all of that said, three of the best scenes in the movie belong to this romance. Much as I dislike the acting early on, Chava is played brilliantly the last few times we see her. The two times she talks to her father about the boy are extremely poignant, and the actress does them well. I was frustrated by her performance in the last scene, which was mainly looking agonized and speaking jerkily, but I'm being nit-picky.

Overall, this is a very good movie that I would recommend seeing.