Review of The Artist (2011) by Cameron326 — 03 Feb 2012

Just seen this. I went from initially impressed ("wow look how authentic it looks!") to bored . . . to amazed, excited and hopeful (at the talking dream part) . . . to slowly bored again and then disappointed, as the film ended.

A few points that struck me.During the movie I was struck by the beautiful, ever so slightly familiar, string theme. On reading up after the movie I learnt this wasn't an original composition. I know the whole thing is sposed to be some kind of "homage to cinema" but thats really stretching it a bit for a Best Picture Nominee. Minus one point there.

I think the film, while technically excellent, didnt take enough risks. As I said, I thought the 'sound dream' but was fantastic and really got me excited for how the rest of the film would play out - maybe it would get surreal, maybe there would be colour, maybe matrix style SFX, even 3D as we see the evolution of film! (ok maybe not 3D, but you get my point). Instead there was nothing else of note.

The plot was wafer thin. I find it ironic that many critics who marvelled at, say, Avatar's fantastic technical aspects but berated its poor, predicatable generic plot, are willing to overlook that crucial aspect in the case of The Artist. Double standards?

Overall, and most importantly, the reason this film should NOT win best picture is that it simply has nothing to offer the viewer on repeat viewings. The first time round has its moments- "wow look how authentic it looks!" - and there's the excitement of not knowing what to expect.

But on repeat viewings all you've got is a mediocre silent film - a bit dull in places, with a wafer thin plot.