Watch Funny Face For Free

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

I rated the movie a 4 because of the second half of the movie. Kay as a Woman's magazine editor was wonderful. Exaggerated her bossiness but enjoyable never the less.Contrary to many of the reviewers I think the match between Fred and Audrey was wonderful throughout the movie. Fred Astaire had a sexiness that could easily sweep a woman off her feet regardless of age. If you can possibly get to see the movie "The Pleasure of His Company" which I believe has not been released officially on DVD, you learn when Fred no longer had the sexiness to attract women young or old. Audrey metamorphosis into a divine model while slightly hard to believe, it makes no difference. I want to believe it!My problem with Kay Thompson is in the second half of the movie. Kay doing a song and dance routine seemed ridiculously out of place. She appeared to be an utter clod. The director should have gotten someone else or just had Fred dancing and singing alone.

Audrey was so beautiful that it seems Hollywood felt all that was needed was to give her some wonderful costumes and project her on to the screen. This movie doesn't even do that very well. Amazingly, although the film is called Funny Face, there are practically no close ups and her fabulous visage is lost in far too many long shots. Compare the photography with that in Charade for example. What do we get instead? An extraordinarily shallow plot, dialogue that might have been written by a five year old, two wonderful Gershwin songs and more than a few uninspiring ones, an uncomfortable dose of ham from Kay Thompson, and Fred doing what he did in the thirties and forties, but unconvincingly.Audrey was wonderful, as always, carrying the rest of the cast single handed. She showed off her singing chops, and she had a wonderful dance scene in the beat café. But her talent and pretty costumes were not enough to save this movie for me.

It starts in some bizarre zone between cheesy and marvellously modern, but it's all style and flash. There's no substance in the first ten minutes, but when Audrey Hepburn comes into view, it's like the floodgates of emotion have been opened, it's like the sight of land on a barren sea. She plays her role like a naive heroine expecting a sincere fairy-tale only to be surprised by a macabre parade of shallow 20th century modernity. This instantaneously creates a clash between two worlds, and we are hooked at least to see how the next scene plays out. But in the end, we are let down by the leading man. Fred Astaire is no match in romance for such a queen as Ms. Hepburn.

Funny Face (1957)I was prepared to love this movie and it let me down even though it has two fabulous leads, the classic musical dance man Fred Astaire and the new star Audrey Hepburn. It even has its photography based on the work of Richard Avedon, and Astaire's character is based on him in his fashion work. I enjoyed it, but it depends too much on common formulas, which I normally don't mind, and it lacks cohesion, flow, and what you might just call magic.That it's partly shot in New York and then Paris (a famously rainy Paris during the shoot) you would think you could hardly go wrong. And in a way it doesn't go wrong overall. But the plot lacks energy, the romantic chemistry is missing (the two are really more like father and daughter), and the series of dance numbers is choppy and uneven. Because of all this, each song goes on too long and you itch for the next scene, and then that scene merely takes us back to the weak plot.If you focus on these weaknesses the movie starts to look almost terrible. Hepburn's transformation from a tweedy intellectual in a bookshop in Manhattan to the premiere runway in Paris sounds like dream come true stuff, but it isn't really convincing (or surprising, of course). The French counter-culture intellectual scene is fun idea but it doesn't push it very far, and the leading voice is played by an actor with no presence at all. Hepburn's interactions in this whole world are forced. Even the opening twenty minutes, which sets the tone, is rough sledding before out two leading actors appear.But focus on the strengths and there are some great moments. Like the series of photo shoots, one after another quickly spreading across the highlights of the city, is fun and stylish. A few of the dance numbers, though short of classic, are great fun, like the modern one in the French smokey bar and the one in the darkroom with the safelights on. In both of these, again, director Stanley Donen (a consummate pro at this stuff) let things drag on just a minute too long, which is a long time in a fast moving movie like this.Then there is Fred Astaire, at ease and warm and really wonderful. He doesn't get a chance to quite blow the doors off any of the dances, but he's still a joy to watch, dancing or just being his warm self. (He was initially a reluctant actor at this point in his life, but was still very active. For a sense of his truer self, perhaps, behind the scenes, see "On the Beach" two years later.)Then there is Audrey Hepburn, by now a stellar and unique star trying to spread her wings into musicals (this was her first). She, as usual in her career, rose above her part and like Astaire was "herself" with such charm she keeps even weaker scenes going. When she's in them, which luckily she is in most of them by the second half. Hepburn also comes across as a superb model (appropriately thin, but not especially tall), and Avedon's photographs of her taken in conjunction with filming are iconic. They get incorporated into the movie directly, both in the scenes where Astaire creates some photos in his role, and in some of the cinematography which imitates Avedon's style (white backdrops, modern styling). In the end it's a great seeming movie with such huge flaws it's just another musical. But that's not fair, quite, so think of it as an up and down ride with some very very fine high points which make it worth watching.