I'm a sucker for films about Paris. This is almost up there with "Gigi" for its exuberant explorations of the Fifties incarnation of the city. The pure beauty of the design from the start is pretty breathtaking as it is. The view of the fashion world, with Thompson satirizing (supposedly) Vreeland, has many echoes of "The Devil Wore Prada" and seems remarkably prescient in Hepburn's character's critiques of its superficiality. All this is nicely offset first against the bookstore where "Joe" works, very nicely reminiscent of many now gone, and then the Bohemian (more particularly, "Apache") world she slips off to while supposedly modeling. With all the Astaire style dance numbers (not as rewarding as with Rogers, even if Hepburn had been a dancer in earlier life), one of the great treats of the film is her doing an "Apache" dance in a Parisian dive. Right up there with the hippy dance sequence from "It's a Mad, Mad World". The withering satire of pretentious French intellectuals is a tad predictable, but amusing (with a faint echo of "Crossing Delancey"). And I'd LOVE to see my French women friends' reaction to a French woman berating her boyfriend only to coo over him after he slaps her hard (boys, do not try this in Paris!). Astaire and Thompson doing Fifties folkies is nicely done as well, and on-point as satire. Personally I loved all the now classic songs, even if they've been done far better in succeeding years. The hint of "Pygmalion" is obvious but not overdone. For a film with "no plot", the film manages to reference a number of other classics. But really it's as much about portraying different milieux and attitudes as it is about story. A delightful film with the one hitch that it takes a GREAT deal of suspension of belief to imagine the exquisite, and still young, Hepburn falling head over heels for the aging Astaire. Adds a "beauty and the beast" touch the filmmakers probably didn't intend.
Review of Funny Face
