Review of Topsy-Turvy (1999) by Ricardo O — 07 Jan 2011

Topsy-Turvy is Mike Leigh's backstage comedy/drama/biopic about what went on behind the stage of one of the opera world's greatest collaborations. W.S. Gilbert (Jim Broadbent) is an emotionally remote lyricist who is facing a failing marriage to his wife Lucy, aka Kitty (Leslie Manville). She loves him dearly even when he can't return the same feelings and to make things worse he has to deal with his sickly father (Charles Simon). Arthur Sullivan (Alan Corduner) is a cheerful, fun-loving composer who has become unsatisfied with writing light operettas. He is tired of working with the typical "topsy-turvy-dom" Gilbert is accustomed to writing and desires to work with much more serious and important material. After a decade of creating popular comic operas together that have delighted the English people, they suffer their first ever failure and become depressed. Sullivan then announces that he is giving up operetta for good. One day Gilbert's wife Lucy decides to take him to a Japanese art exhibit so he can be distracted from work and after some fighting against going, he agrees. He seems to have really enjoyed the whole art exhibit, even purchasing a katana which he puts on the wall above a doorway. One day the sword falls over and causes inspiration to write what would become one of their greatest successes, The Mikado.

The first hour is mostly focused on the main characters of the story and what caused the famous opera to be formed in the first place. The last hour and a half is devoted to the staging and preparations that went into the making of The Mikado. The first half isn't necessarily boring as it develops the characters quite well and is still entertaining in itself but it's the least interesting part of the film. The second half is where the film really shines. Because the whole staging and preparations are just so entertaining to watch, the whole 2 hr. 40 min. go by really fast.

My personal favorite scenes were where the "Three Little Maids" was being worked out with the actors and Gilbert just doesn't like the way they're walking to the front of the stage as he say it's not the way the Japanese would do it; the choreographer then replies that of course it's not because they (the actors) are not Japanese, and he just can't seem to understand what Gilbert is trying to get at. Gilbert then gets up and asks the three Japanese women he has watching as guests to walk the stage. The three actors do it and Gilbert is completely satisfied with it, although the choreographer still can't grasp why he would want that as it is just boring. The other scene is where three actors are giving line readings and Grossmith (Martin Savage) expresses the wrong kinds of emotions where Gilbert reminds him that his character is under sentence of death "by something lingering. By either boiling oil or melted lead. Kindly bear that in mind." Also how the actress can't correctly pronounce the word "corroborative". Just about every scene is good but these two stand out most for me.

Mike Leigh's direction is absolutely superb. All of his actors play their characters really well especially Jim Broadbent as Sullivan who gives an Oscar worthy performance. Other notable performances include Alan Corduner as Sullivan, Leigh regular Timothy Spall as Temple, and the delightful Leslie Manville as Gilbert's wife Lucy. Leigh delivers most of the laughs from his prima donnas while they are getting fitted into their kimonos and getting misinformed about how to "act Japanese." It's really a delight to observe. Then there's also the excellent attention to detail as Leigh and co. get the right look and feel of the Victorian era which obviously the Academy paid attention to as the costume designer Lindy Hemming and makeup artists Christine Blundell and Trefor Proud went on to receive Oscars for their excellent work. Oscar nominations were also given to John Bush and Eve Stewart for their art direction/set design as well as a second nomination for an original screenplay written by Mike Leigh.

This is certainly a film that fans of Mike Leigh will enjoy as well as those that are acquainted with the work of Gilbert & Sullivan and those that enjoy films about what goes into making pieces of art such as opera. It's really a joy to watch even with a running time of 160 minutes. And with a cast as talented as this, as well as the best living British writer/director around today, you will find enough to enjoy. Highly recommended viewing. 10/10.