What a Girl Wants (2003) [PG] ***

A film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net in 2003.

Forget Halloween. Forget The Shining. Forget The Exorcist and The Ring. The movie to truly horrify a grown man is What a Girl Wants, a motion picture that only a female (preferably between the ages of 8 and 16) could love. This goes beyond the term chick flick to something more estrogen-driven than a romantic comedy. It's a variation of the Cinderella fairy tale that knows its target audience. Pre-teen and teenage girls (and maybe a few older women) will adore this motion picture. They will identify with the main character as a fantasy object, sigh over older hunk Colin Firth and younger hunk Oliver James, and hiss and spit at wicked, nasty Anna Chancellor. In fact, the only thing surprising about What a Girl Wants is that it's not from Disney, the company that foisted the oh-too-similar Princess Diaries upon us.

Predictable, giddy movies with contrived plot devices and relentlessly upbeat endings are not my kind of thing. I don't like films where I'm always at least two steps ahead of the screenwriter and three ahead of the characters. It is possible to construct a modern-day fairy tale with a smart script (try Drew Barrymore's Ever After, if you don't believe me), but that would take more effort than what has occurred here – slapping together a bunch of tried-and-true elements and throwing them up on the screen. I didn't hate What a Girl Wants, but there were plenty of times when I found myself wishing it would have the gumption to be more than it is. The 100 minutes go by effortlessly, although they aren't spent profitably.

Daphne Reynolds (Amanda Bynes) is a typical 17-year old teenage girl being raised by a single parent, Libby (Kelly Preston). She has never met her father because he doesn't know about her. Eighteen years ago, Libby met Henry Dashwood (Colin Firth), in Morocco, where they were married in a desert Bedouin ceremony. But the marriage fell apart when Henry returned to England and his senior advisor learned that Libby was pregnant, feared it would ruin Henry’s political career and convinced Libby to go home to America. Now, eighteen years later, Daphne tracks down her father and shows up unannounced in his back garden, upsetting his life, his bid for a seat in Parliament, and his prospective marriage to the haughty Glynnis (Anna Chancellor). Aside from Henry, the only one delighted to meet Daphne is her grandmother (Eileen Atkins). Thus begins a tug-of-war, as Daphne and Henry work to change one another. She tries to loosen him up; he tries to teach her decorum. Along the way, she also finds time to fall in love with Ian (Oliver James), a local musician.

Lead actress Amanda Bynes is perky and energetic, and does a good job when the screenplay doesn't require much in the way of emotional range or depth. After a while, however, the non-stop cheerfulness and high-wattage smile begin to wear on one's nerves. Colin Firth does his best not to appear constantly embarrassed, which is something of a challenge, especially when he's put in the position of having to try on tight leather pants. Kelly Preston is relaxed and in her element. This is the kind of role she can play without trying. Both Anna Chancellor, as the wicked stepmother type, and Jonathan Pryce, as her father, look constantly constipated.

What a Girl Wants is not only the victim of mediocre writing, it is hamstrung by amateurish camerawork. Director Dennie Gordon only has one feature film on her resume (Joe Dirt), and her lack of skill is apparent. She is overly fond of close-ups (probably as a result of her numerous television credits) and many of her shots are static and composed with a 1.33:1 aspect ratio in mind (despite the fact that the movie is projected at 2:35:1). The result is a movie whose flat look seems strangely appropriate for its lightweight story. This is a throwaway TV movie packaged for a theatrical release. Anyone not in the target demographic is advised to give it a wide berth. [Berardinelli’s rating: 2 stars out of 4 or 50%]

Amanda Bynes was born in California in April, 1986 so she is 34 as of this writing (2020). She began acting in 1998 at the age of 12 and had accumulated 21 acting credits by the age of 24 in 2010, when she announced her retirement from acting.

Labels: Cinderella-story, comedy, cross-cultural, drama, family, reunion, romance
IMDb 58/100 
MetaScore (critics=41, viewers=66) 
RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=48, viewers=71)
Amanda Bynes biography 

 

Crazy Rich Asians (2018) [PG-13] ****

A film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net on Aug. 14, 2018.

On the surface, Crazy Rich Asians and Sex and the City couldn’t be more different but, if you dig deep enough into their respective DNA’s, there’s a common thread: the love of conspicuous consumption. Heard the term First World problems? It applies here. Despite half-hearted attempts to satirize the characters’ love of consumerism, Crazy Rich Asians buys into this philosophy so completely that it requires it to be part of the happy ending. Granted, one wouldn’t expect a modern-day fairy tale to be socially conscious but there’s something so overt about this materialism that it stains the overall experience.

Putting that aspect of the film aside, Crazy Rich Asians offers a romantic comedy that is remarkable primarily for its all-Asian cast. Based on the novel by Kevin Kwan, the film chronicles the romance between two Asians living in New York: Chinese American economics professor Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) and Singapore-born Nick Young (Henry Golding). Dispensing with such typical rom com staples as the meet cute and the first kiss, Crazy Rich Asians drops midway into Rachel and Nick’s relationship. They’re young, in love, and starting to think about (although neither has voiced it) marriage. That’s when Nick takes a big step – offering to bring Rachel to his home country (Singapore) to meet his family. There’s something he hasn’t told her, though. The Young family is filthy rich and Nick is considered almost royalty. When Rachel first meets Nick’s crusty mother, Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh), the older woman isn’t impressed. And she has no shortage of help ensuring that this Cinderella doesn’t capture her son.

The concept of a prospective spouse causing friction between a person and his/her family is nothing new in cinema. Marty, about this very subject, won a Best Picture Oscar in 1956. As an examination of this thorny dynamic, Crazy Rich Asians isn’t especially perceptive. Like many romantic comedies, it prefers to skim the surface, staying shallow rather than diving deep. The movie has been made for those interested only in a glitzy fantasy given an exotic element resulting from the location and all-Asian cast.

As the couple whose romance we’re supposed to root for, Rachel and Nick are physically attractive and morally upright. They’re good, likable people. Constance Wu and Henry Golding have sufficient chemistry to make the romance believable. Iconic actress Michelle Yeoh uses her steely eyes and infinite composure to allow Eleanor to break free of the stereotype constraining her character. Awkwafina and Ken Jeong, both on hand for purely comedic purposes, argue that less might have been better. They’re amusing in small doses but each is given too much screen time.

Early in the proceedings, director Jon M. Chu’s deft hand promises more than the bulk of the film delivers. When Rachel meets Nick in public, two girls recognize him, take a picture, and post it to social media, where it immediately goes viral. As a result, all of Singapore knows about Nick’s American girlfriend (later called a banana – yellow on the outside and white on the inside) before the couple has completed their conversation. Shortly thereafter, there’s a fun scene in which another member of the Young royalty, Astrid (Gemma Chan), is shown hiding her purchases from her husband, who isn’t entirely supportive of her spendthrift habits. Scenes like these raise the possibility that Crazy Rich Asians could have achieved a level of wit and sophistication that it never realizes.

I realize that the majority of those who see the movie are simply interested in escapism and wish-fulfillment. For those viewers, although the fantasy may not be the most original or best executed, it works well enough to satisfy the craving. Like any product, Crazy Rich Asians knows its audience and caters exclusively to them. If you’re counted among their number – anyone who adores modern-day fairy tales in which love triumphs over all (including bitter old women) – things like the worship of consumerism and glossy superficiality won’t matter. Although the humor is variable, the romance is consistent and that allows the film to go down smoothly even if it takes an inordinately long time to do so. [Berardinelli’s rating: 2.5 out of 4 stars]

Blogger’s comment: I totally agree with James Berardinelli’s rating. This is not a film I would waste my time seeing again. However, I did find the overarching cultural differences interesting. While Americans are focused on finding and living our individual passions, Chinese in Singapore are focused on insuring the enduring legacy of the family, on building wealth, power and prestige over many generations even if it means sacrificing individual happiness and fulfillment.

Labels: Cinderella-story, comedy, cross-cultural, romance

Internet Movie Database 69 

MetaScore (critics=74, viewers=68) 

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=77, viewers=78) 

Blu-ray 

Crown for Christmas (2015) [TV-G] ***/****

A film review by Rissi JC for silverpetticoatreview.com on Nov. 28, 2015. Click this link for the on-line version of the review.

Crown for Christmas, is more than a little bit cute, primarily because a familiar British face shows up in the role of leading man – and he’s a king, no less!

Life for the Evans family has never been easy. But this Christmas, life for them is going to get a little tougher. The eldest sister, Allie (Danica McKellar) and her sister both lose their jobs as hotel maids following Allie’s disagreement with their boss.

Fortunately for Allie, Fergus (Pavel Douglas), impressed by her prompt return of a valuable lost watch, and in need of a temporary governess, overhears her dismissal. This prompts a job offer as a governess working for royalty. King Maximillian (Persuasion‘s Rupert Penry-Jones) is in need of yet another nanny to corral his precocious daughter, Theodora (Ellie Botterill). Allie seems the ideal choice, at least to get the king through the holiday season. But the more Allie gets to know him and Theodora, the more comfortable she becomes in this life with a red-headed princess and her widower father.

As adorable as Crown for Christmas is, however, the fact that the entire story takes place over a matter of a few days will leave some viewers feeling uncomfortable. I personally feel this adorable, contemporary fairy tale film could have been strengthened if there had been a longer space of time between Allie’s arrival and the eventual conclusion. True, this is a fairy tale and as such starts out reaching for the stars as is, however, selling the angst and character emotions would have been more believable had the timeline been altered just a little.

With that out of the way, this new film is as smashing as any of its Hallmark peers. The Cinderella fairy tale storyline is something I never tire of whether it’s set in the contemporary or historical world. For the most part, the cast of Crown for Christmas is fantastic, and in particular, the young actress who plays the princess was delightful. This says nothing of the addition of British star Rupert Penry-Jones as the leading man. Seeing him in this will be great fun for those of you fellow period drama aficionados who will recognize Rupert as Wentworth from Persuasion and also the adaptation of The 39 Steps.

Even these many years later, one of my most favored TV Christmas movies (or one of them, for there are many) is A Princess for Christmas (starring Outlander’s Sam Heughan and Merlin’s Katie McGrath). This one doesn’t quite take its place but as with anything you sit down to watch this time of year, this is full of twinkle lights and fabulous holiday cheer. One thing I am sure of, no matter where this one falls in your personal rankings of Hallmark’s originals, this is sure to leave you with a smile.

[Blogger’s comment: Crown for Christmas is a typical Hallmark reworking of the story of wealthy/titled/royalty falling for commoner/nanny/governess, which we’ve seen countless times, from Roman Holiday (1953), The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) and The Sound of Music (1965), to Pretty Woman (1990), Titanic (1997), Notting Hill (1999), Maid in Manhattan (2002), What a Girl Wants (2003), The Notebook (2004) and The Prince and Me (2004), to name just a few. This Hallmark version washes all the tension out of the story and we’re left with a sweet fantasy, which rarely reflects what happens in real life (example: Charles and Diana). Is Allie (Danica McKellar) really going to leave her younger sister and brother, move from New York City to the tiny Western European principality of Winshire, marry its widowed monarch and live happily ever after in a huge fairy-tale castle? Oh, sure!]

Labels: Christmas, Cinderella-story, comedy, Hallmark, romance

IMDb 69/100 

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=NA, viewers=68) 

Into the Woods (2014) [PG] ****

A film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net on Dec. 22, 2014.

Into the Woods left me out in the cold. The long-gestating cinematic adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's fairy tale-infused Broadway musical, Into the Woods can claim a clever screenplay and a few enjoyable performances but little else. The generic musical numbers are choreographed with little in the way of verve and there's nary a catchy tune to be found. The film's dearth of emotional impact is grossly apparent when characters are dispatched and no one really cares. And the small budget (reportedly about $50 million) disallows any of the visual effects to be called special.

It's questionable whether fans of the play are going to be thrilled with director Rob Marshall's interpretation. Not only does it elide an important character (The Narrator) but it changes the fate of another and tones down the overt sexual suggestiveness of two relationships (all in the name of family friendliness, of course). Sondheim grudgingly approved the changes but the language he employed in speaking about them makes it apparent that, although he recognizes the commercial necessity, the artistic implications don't thrill him.

The idea behind Into the Woods remains as fresh for the movie version as it was when it took the stage by storm more than 25 years ago. Four of The Brothers Grimm's tales are rebooted and interwoven: Cinderella (featuring Anna Kendrick in that role), Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford), Jack and the Beanstalk (Daniel Huttlestone), and Rapunzel (Mackenzie Mauzy). Added to these is a story that the Grimm siblings never wrote but might as well have - The Baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt), unable to have a child, discover that a Witch (Meryl Streep, channeling her character from The Devil Wears Prada) has placed a curse on their house. To get it removed, they have three nights to go on a scavenger hunt and retrieve four items: a milky white cow, a blood-red cape, a corn-yellow strand of hair, and a golden slipper. So everyone goes into the woods, interacts, and comes out to live happily ever after, at least until Act II.

Marshall is no neophyte when it comes to making movie musicals. In fact, he's one of the few working directors who embraces the genre. His Chicago won the Oscar, after all. This makes it all the more surprising how flat Into the Woods is. The animated Disney musicals of the early '90s had more life. Only one musical number, the deliciously satirical Agony, has the level of energy one would expect from this production, and its success is due more to the way in which Chris Pine plays the scene than the staging, choreography, or setting of the song.

Speaking of Pine (and with all apologies to the perennial Oscar nominee Meryl Streep), he's the best thing Into the Woods has to offer. His Prince Charming is the perfect mix of bluster, charisma, and empty-headedness. Put alongside his work in the otherwise execrable Horrible Bosses 2, he's showing genuine comedic chops. For the most part, his co-stars don't fare as well. Streep is (of course) a standout but Johnny Depp appears in only one scene with a total screen time not exceeding five minutes and name actors like Anna Kendrick and Emily Blunt are given forgettable, wafer-thin parts.

Disney has built its animated stable in part on tweaked versions of fairy tales credited to the likes of The Grimm Brothers and Hans Christian Andersen. Two of the characters in Into the Woods are recognized Disney Princesses. (Note: Although Sleeping Beauty and Snow White made brief appearances in the stage version of the play, they have been deleted from the screen adaptation.) Perhaps the intention was to make this a companion piece to Maleficent - a live-adaptation reworking of popular animated fare. However, where Maleficent achieved something unique and stirring, Into the Woods is strangely stillborn. One wonders whether the studio's need to protect the images of their property has resulted in a whitewashing of Into the Woods.

In terms of its content, Into the Woods may be suitable for family audiences, but it's hard to imagine young children having much interest in a film that is consistently dark and pauses frequently for the actors to warble forgettable tunes. Just as there's nothing terribly wrong with Into the Woods, there's nothing terribly right, either. I'm sure it will make a lot of money - the Disney and Sondheim imprints are sufficient to guarantee a solid return on investment, but as Christmas Day's brightest light, this bulb needs replacement. [Berardinelli’s rating: 2.5 out of 4 stars]

Labels: adventure, Cinderella-story, Emily Blunt, fantasy, musical

Internet Movie Database 

Metacritic (69/100) 

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=66, viewers=64) 

Blu-ray 

The Sound of Music (1965) [G] *****

A film review by Casey Broadwater for blu-ray.com on Nov. 3, 2010.

Hollywood insiders called it The Sound of Money when it started raking in loads of box office cash. Leading man Christopher Plummer, thinking it was too sentimental, referred to it as The Sound of Mucus. Influential film critic Pauline Kael even deemed it a sugar-coated lie that some people seem to want to eat. But let's set the cynicism aside for a moment. It may be syrupy, and it's definitely a Hollywood cash cow - even now, 45 years after its release - but has there ever been a film more sincerely joyful, more wide-eyed and earnestly optimistic than The Sound of Music? (If there has, I haven't seen it.) It's easy to be wary about unbridled hope, but this movie musical - the eighth and final collaboration between Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, the greatest composer/lyricist duo of the 20th century - comes by it honestly. There's no pandering here, no wink-wink irony, no sense of kitsch or camp. The Sound of Music genuinely believes in the possibilities of love, the certainty of good's triumph over evil, and the redeeming, transcendent power of song. Critics can scoff and cynics cringe, but there's a reason audiences world-over have been singing along with the film since 1965.

The based-on-a-true-story is almost universally familiar by now. Broadway star Julie Andrews plays Maria, a good-natured but troublemaking postulant at a convent in the Austrian Alps. Perhaps troublemaking is an overstatement. In the song Maria, sung by her wimple-wearing supervisors, we learn that Maria's main offenses are waltzing on the way to Mass, whistling on the stair, and - gasp! - singing in the abbey. Knowing that she's A flibbertigibbet! A will-o'-the-wisp! A clown! and perhaps too flighty to become a proper nun, the Mother Abbess (Peggy Wood) puts Maria on probation and sends her to Salzburg to serve as the governess of the seven von Trapp children, aged five to sixteen. Their father, Georg (Christopher Plummer), is a widower and former Navy captain, a hardcore disciplinarian who orders his kids around with the aid of an impossibly shrill whistle. Maria, of course, takes a different tact, winning the children over with song, sewing play clothes out of old drapes, climbing trees, going on mountaintop picnics, and putting on puppet shows. The captain's heart is slowly opened when he sees the change in his children, and he breaks off his engagement with the coldly shrewd Baroness Schraeder (Eleanor Parker) to marry Maria. Alas, there's trouble in paradise. These are the last golden days of Austria in the 1930s, and the Nazi threat looms over the Alps like a thundercloud. Don't worry, though, this is The Sound of Music, not Schindler's List, and despite a tense climax that finds the von Trapps hiding from SS foot soldiers in the abbey cemetery, the dénouement is pure - literal and figurative - escapism.

Every junction, twist, and turn of the plot is accompanied by song, and the musical numbers are so memorably infectious, there ought to be an auditory branch of the Centers for Disease Control working around the clock on an antidote for the inevitable ailment of getting these tunes stuck permanently in your head. Nearly every song has since become a bonafide classic, from the title track - which finds Maria, arms outstretched, spinning in euphoria - to Climb Every Mountain, the inspiration closer. In between, there's My Favorite Things, an ode to joyful list-making, Do-Re-Mi, a veritable music lesson, and The Lonely Goatherd, a lyrical tongue twister if there ever was one. And let's not forget the fact that most people think Edelweiss is an actual Austrian folk song, and not a brilliant creation of Rodgers and Hammerstein. There's an air of abject wholesomeness that pervades all of the music - which led Pauline Kael to controversially say, we have been turned into emotional and aesthetic imbeciles when we hear ourselves humming the sickly, goody-goody songs - but delve into the subtext of Hammerstein's lyrics and you'll find slight shades of passion, and even sex, as when eldest daughter Liesl (Charmian Carr) sings, I am sixteen, going on seventeen, innocent as a rose. Since when were the delicate, sensual petals of a rose considered innocent? Still, this is family-friendly stuff all around, and while it may be overly sweet, I don't think it's fair to say it's sickeningly so. Not every film needs to be a gritty, philosophically loaded, emotionally exhausting drama.

The Sound of Music is, at the very least, well-made fluff, but it's frequently much more than that. The film is exhilarating from the first frames, as Director Robert Wise takes us on an aerial tour of the Alps, culminating in a helicopter shot that swoops down on a twirling Julie Andrews right as she erupts into song. Wise has a keen sense of mise-en-scène, and all of his compositions emphasize depth and movement, particularly his arrangements of the seven von Trapp children. The kids themselves come across as precocious, but never obnoxious, and when Christopher Plummer's steely eyes soften at the sound of their singing, even the most hardened moviegoer is likely to break into an insuppressible smile or even shed a tear. The movie is essentially engineered to make you feel good, to make your heart swell, and whether or not you think this is manipulative or superficial, it's certainly effective. I can think of few better cures for the blues than spending 174 minutes with The Sound of Music. Yes, at nearly three hours long - thanks to reprises of just about every song - the film would seem to run the risk of sagging in the middle, but it surprisingly never does, floating along instead on its own glee-filled effervescence. And the source of this bubbly propulsion is Julie Andrews, who practically radiates joy and goodness. It's easy, maybe even fashionable among critics, to dislike The Sound of Music, but we could all stand to be a little bit more like Maria, waltzing, whistling, and singing our way through life.

Labels: biography, Cinderella-story, drama, Eleanor Parker, family, musical, romance

Internet Movie Database 8.0/10 

Metacritic 63/100 

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=81, viewers=88) 

Blu-ray 
Eleanor Parker: An Obituary (blog entry)

Intermezzo: A Love Story (1939) [UR] ****

While I’ve always appreciated Casablanca (1942), I was not a huge fan of Ingrid Bergman until recently and, admittedly, did not fully appreciate her incredible talent. Then, after reading her autobiography, My Story, and watching a number of her films, I’ve begun to realize how amazing she was.

Intermezzo (1939) is the remake of her 1936 Swedish-language film by the same name. Produced by David O. Selznick (Gone with the Wind, 1939) this is Bergman’s English-speaking film debut and she's wonderful in it. Even at the age of 24, there's something about her that's mesmerizing. The fact that she manages to make this melodrama watchable is a tribute to her range and depth as an actress, and, honestly, she's the only reason to sit through this romantic drama. She's radiant, intelligent and funny, and she makes you believe that Leslie Howard (Gone with the Wind, 1939) is charismatic, sexy and interesting, something that’s not easily done. Yes, his character is a world-famous violinist, and she’s admired his talent from a distance, but still, the fact that a gorgeous young woman with her abilities would actually fall in love with someone like him is pretty hard to believe. That’s is not to say that Leslie Howard is unattractive or untalented; he's just lacks the sex appeal of a Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant or Gregory Peck, all 1940s co-stars of Bergman.

There's not much to the story of Intermezzo. Leslie Howard plays Holger Brandt, a famous violinist with a wife Margit (Edna Best) and family who stay at home while he tours the world. Upon his most recent return, his 6-year-old daughter (Ann Marie, played by Ann Todd) introduces Holger to her piano teacher, Anita Hoffman, played by Bergman. He’s oblivious to her until she plays at his daughter's birthday party, and her talent and beauty take him by surprise. He falls for her completely after they accidently meet at a symphony concert.

After some champagne and a long walk, it's obvious there's more between them then mere friendship. They soon begin a secret love affair, and when Holger invites Anita to be his accompanist on his upcoming tour, Margit begins to suspect something. Anita doesn't want to give up her studies, but her heart won't allow her to say no. They try to keep their affair quiet, but when she resigns as Ann Marie’s piano teacher and attempts to leave town, Margit knows all too well why. Holger separates from Margit and the two leave on tour together, despite leaving the wreckage of his family behind. Their European tour is a great success, and after it ends in Switzerland, they remain there on holiday.

However, Holger is torn by his feelings for his wife and family, particularly his daughter, and by his passion for Anita. She is his mid-life crisis, and every man should be so lucky. Eventually, it’s apparent to both of them that their stolen love can't last forever. Their happiness cannot be built on the unhappiness of others, and Holger’s past and Anita’s future cannot be joined forever.

Intermezzo is not an Oscar-winning movie, but it's not terrible either. It's typical of the films of its day, and the thing that makes it watchable today is Bergman's performance; the film drags whenever she's not onscreen. Her character goes through the full range of romantic/dramatic emotions, and she’s perfect every time. No one does joyfully exuberant or tortured by guilt better than Ingrid Bergman.

The violin and piano music is something of a minor character in the film and gives it additional dimension and class. If you’re interested in romantic dramas from the Golden Age of Hollywood and you’d like to see the film that launched Ingrid Bergman’s film career, watch Intermezzo (1939).

Labels: Cinderella-story, drama, Ingrid Bergman, music, romance, rom-drama-faves

Internet Movie Database 6.8/10

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=74, viewers=68) 

Wikipedia Intermezzo (1939) 

Amazon "MyStory" 

MetaScore (critics=74)

Intermezzo (1936) [UR] ****

Ingrid Bergman is a genuine Hollywood icon, and one of the top-ranked actresses of all time, thanks to her starring roles in Casablanca (1942), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), Gaslight (1944), Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946), Anastasia (1956) and Autumn Sonata (1978). However, not as much attention is paid to her pre-Hollywood career. Ingrid Bergman began her stage and screen career in Sweden, and Intermezzo is one of her most accomplished films from her home country. It gives many of us our first chance to see a screen legend developing her craft in the earliest stages of her career.

Though Bergman had already appeared in six features, including one uncredited role, one could argue that the 1936 version of Intermezzo was really what got her career started. Directed by Gustaf Molander, who co-wrote the screenplay with Gösta Stevens, Intermezzo was the movie that brought Bergman to the attention of famed Hollywood producer David O. Selznick (Gone with the Wind, 1939). Selznick brought her to Hollywood and cast her in the 1939 English-language remake of Intermezzo, with Gone with the Wind star Leslie Howard. Intermezzo became her breakout role.

In the movie, Bergman plays Anita Hoffman, a promising young pianist who ignores better advice and pairs up with concert violinist Holger Brandt (Gösta Ekman), joining the married man as both his musical accompanist and his lover. Brandt sacrifices his home life, leaving behind his wife and two children, to take Anita on a European tour with him; Anita also gives up the tutelage of Brandt's former partner (Hugo Björne). The two are relatively happy, but they practically live in exile, with Anita in a subordinate role as Brandt's accompanist, rather than blossoming into her own as an artist. When Anita is awarded the 1936 Jenny Lind scholarship to study piano in Paris, the two lovers must ask themselves what is really important: their love for each other, or their love of music. Brandt must also face what he's already left behind. As he puts it, they are stuck with the irony that his past and her future can never be joined together.

For a movie about two passionate artists locked in a scandalous affair, Intermezzo is relatively restrained. Though solidly written, it’s rather melodramatic, and drifts toward its foregone conclusion, communicating the sense that their fates are driving Anita and Holger. Thankfully, it's a film that is very well performed, especially by Bergman. While some critics have faulted Ekman for overacting his role, Bergman is absolutely radiant, elevating the quality and tone of the film whenever she is on screen. The two actors strike a fine balance, with Ekman's needy ego fitting in perfectly with Bergman's desire to please. The actress displays a sweet innocence at the start of the movie that is vastly different than some of her later, better-known roles. Intermezzo is also a pretty film to look at, with elaborate sets and a gorgeous wardrobe, presumably reflecting the style of 1930s Sweden.

If you watch the 1936 Intermezzo and then the 1939 version, you’ll appreciate that the screenplay for the later film was slightly rewritten to give Ingrid Bergman a larger role.

Labels: Cinderella-story, drama, Ingrid Bergman, music, romance, rom-drama-faves

Internet Movie Database 6.8/10 

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=NA, viewers=70) 

Wikipedia: Ingrid Bergman

Bergman, who was born on August 29, 1915, was twenty-one when she filmed the Swedish-language Intermezzo, in 1936. Less than a year later, on July 10, 1937 she married her first husband, dentist Petter Lindstrom, and two years later she filmed the English-language remake of Intermezzo in Hollywood.

Ingrid and Petter Lindstrom in June, 1937, just before their wedding. 

A series of screen-captures from Intermezzo (1936):