My Fair Lady (1964)
original illustration by Bob Peak
Decided to start watching all of the Oscar best picture winners, in order. I hadn’t heard of some of these movies, some I love and have seen multiple times already and I actively hate others, planning to never watch them again. Fair warning, there will be spoilers in these and other reviews to help explain my point of view.
Honestly, I don’t have a lot to say about this film. It is beautiful, the costumes are amazing (I especially love the hats!) and it has a lot of great music. Hepburn does a great job as Eliza and apart from his talk-singing, Harrison is great as Henry.
I suppose my trepidation with this film is with it’s message, which is that it’s okay to treat a woman like garbage as long as you’re actually trying to make her a better person and she will end up falling in love with you along the way, even though you are terrible to her in every way. My negative feelings are supported by the fact that the movie changed the ending of Shaw’s original play; he didn’t want Eliza and Henry to end up together, but very few versions of the play and subsequent musical honor that ending. I saw a touring version of the musical earlier this year; since it is based on the recent Broadway revival, it does honor the original ending and the show is much better for it.
Did this deserve the Oscar? I suppose so; it is a well-made film that fits perfectly into the mold of what an Oscar-winning film was supposed to be. I have no quarrel with it winning because of its high quality, but rating this is tricky, so I will give it 3 out of 5 stars to acknowledge it is well-made, even though it’s not one of my favorites.
