Funny Face
Funny Face
NR | 13 February 1957 (USA)
Funny Face Trailers

A shy Greenwich Village book clerk is discovered by a fashion photographer and whisked off to Paris where she becomes a reluctant model.

Reviews
Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.
Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows
Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.
Matt Greene "Funny Face" is pure cotton candy; colorful and sweet, but with such little substance, it disappears almost as quickly as it appears. Nonetheless, who doesn't love cotton candy? Nazis. That's who. It's so delightfully buoyant and colorfully entertaining, I don't even care that they are incessantly trying to convince us that Audrey Hepburn isn't gorgeous.
Barry Weber Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire and Kay Thompson are all fabulous and perfectly cast. Great music with great singing and dancing. Thompson's character sings 'Think Pink' then claims she wouldn't be caught dead in it. Half an hour later in the film, guess what she's wearing? Pink! Great film, watching it now as I write this.
tbuckley-824-450569 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.
mmallon4 It disappoints me that for many people Funny Face will be their only encounter with Fred Astaire due to the fact that it is an Audrey Hepburn film. I first watched Funny Face for the Hepburn factor (unfamiliar at the time with Fred Astaire) and was left unimpressed with the film. Later on I became infatuated with Astaire thanks to his partnership with Ginger Rogers and other films such as The Bandwagon. Due to this I revisited Funny Face in the hope that I would appreciate it more; unfortunately the opposite happened. Boy is this movie a waste of talent:First and foremost, dancing, or should I say the lack of it. When I watch a Fred Astaire musical I expect to be memorised by his dancing moves. Yet every time a musical number began in Funny Face, Astaire does nothing. There are times when I expect him to bust a move but nothing happens. Eventfully when he does start dancing, the choreography is about as basic as it gets. Secondly, comedy. I've always thought Fred Astaire is very undervalued as a comedic actor. In the films he did with Ginger Rogers his timing and ability to come up with a witty comeback to everything is right up there with the likes of Groucho Marx. Typically in these films he would be playing off high society snobs and in Funny Face these same snobs exist, but Astaire is now one of them! Whenever a character in this film is being superficial or snobbish, Astaire just stands there and does nothing! In the past he would have been all Groucho Marx on them.Next, chemistry. Being a huge fan of both these stars, perhaps just seeing them together could help elevate the film above its flaws? Nope! Astaire and Hepburn have no chemistry at all. While Hepburn does fair better in this film than Astaire, having one musical number which I quite liked, The Basal Metabolism. But that's enough lavishing praise on this movie.Finally, the plot. Granted many musicals have silly plots, that's part of their charm. But plot in Funny Face goes beyond silly, it's flat out insulting. Well ignoring the fact that in the reality of the film, Audrey Hepburn is considered unattractive, they take an intellectual girl who works at a book store and turn her into a superficial model. Also why can't Audrey not just call the police and tell them that the book store she works at was trespassed, used for unauthorised photography and vandalised, oh never mind, the plot just sucks. Also I'm so sick of Paris being used as a setting for romantic comedies. Choose a different city!If this is the only Fred Astaire film you've seen, please I beg of you, watch the films he did with Ginger Rogers or The Bandwagon in order to see what he is really like.