My Fair Lady

The long process of catching Zach up on movies he completely missed as a child has begun with My Fair Lady (and will most likely be continued with Mary Poppins soon).

First off, I swear to god Natalie Portman is the illegitamate love child of Audrey Hepburn. It's just...uncanny how much they look alike sometimes. Anyways, the movie.

For those who aren't in the know and like me have long heard of My Fair Lady but never seen it, the story centers around a lowly flowergirl named Eliza Doolittle whose completely lower-class accent attracts the attention of Professor Henry Higgins, who studies phonetics (the sounds of speech). In passing conversation with a man who turns out to be Colonel Pickering, an expert on Indian dialects, he reveals his philosophy that given 6 months to teach her how to speak proper english she could pass for a lady at the Embassy Ball. He then quickly forgets and leaves her in the street talking to Pickering, but the idea seems to have stuck with Eliza. Soon enough, she seeks out Higgins and Pickering and a bet is struck that if Higgins can turn her into a lady by the Embassy Ball, Pickering will pay for all of the costs of keeping her. From then on she's under the strict and uncompromising tutelage of Higgins, who will stop at nothing to turn her into a true lady.

While the film follows a rather predictable trajectory (except the ending, which seems unjustified in terms of the character arcs, and was apparently different from the original play) it's nothing but a joy to watch. Rex Harrison is perfect as the almost completely unfeeling, stubborn, and rather ignorant Higgins, and both he and Hepburn share a wonderful irascibility with each other. Hepburn also carries the role of Eliza very well, transforming from the loud mouthed flower girl who wore her heart on her sleeve to the lady whose emotions are only betrayed by the sadness or joy in her eyes.

Also, every time I watch this kind of essentially filmed stage musical I just have to wonder...where did these films go? Why have we had nothing like them recently? The only close things we've had are movies like Rent, Chicago, and Phantom which are much more Hollywood movies than the big obviously fake sets with big choruses like we see in filmed musicals like My Fair Lady. I just think it's high time someone at least tried to bring something like that back.

Anyways, there's a reason My Fair Lady won 8 academy awards. It has one of the most brilliantly comical scenes I think I've seen (the subdued excitement at the racetrack) with some great actors giving great performances and singing (even if it wasn't them actually singing)/ sing-talking some really fun songs. The only gripe I have with it was that they didn't really justify the ending, but that's a small complaint in the face of such a great film.

My Fair Lady gets a 10/10.