After watching some Chaplin films and reading books about Chaplin and silent films, I had been anticipating viewing this film for quite some time. I was surprised by the fact that no one did a bio-pic of Chaplin until 1992, which was 15 years after his death. One would have expected that a film would have been done about him a long time ago.
This film chronicles the entire life of Chaplin in chronological order and does an excellent job of doing so. The film has a promising start detailing Chaplin's poverty plagued childhood and then his rise to early stardom in Hollywood. However, this is where the greatness of the movie ends. In focusing on Chaplin's continuing stardom and the inclusion of talkies into the mainstream, this movie starts to fade and dwell only in Chaplin's personal life. Now I must admit there are some things of Chaplin's personal life that were of interest, but too much time was wasted on his various tyrsts and his unending appetite for young ladies.
Downey Jr. plays Chaplin to the best of his tremendous acting ability and was definitely merited in getting the academy award nomination. I felt that had this movie told more of Chaplin's dealings with Hollywood and how he went about creating his films, Downey Jr. would have undoubtedly won. The majority of the large name supporting cast (Kline, Tomei, Hopkins, etc.) played well into the film, although none of them really added that extra punch to the story. Perhaps with the exception of Geraldine Chaplin who did a wonderful job playing her own grandmother.
I was very touched by the end of the film in which we see Charlie in the dark at the 1975 Academy Awards wacthing clips of his movies. He was there to receive his lifetime achievement award and didn't believe that the audience would receive his films all that well. This showed that after all the years, all he really wanted was acceptance from America which had been his home for many years. This was also the first time he had been on American soil in over 20 years after being denied re-entry to the country on the basis that he was a communist. (Which were entirely false allegations.) This scene came close to perfectly ending the film, however, I felt that it should have shown Chaplin accepting the award.
I really enjoyed this film, but still believe that Attenborough could have done better had he not dwelled so much in Chaplin's personal relationships and more in his great career and the stories behind the story. I would recommend this film to anyone who enjoys films.
7/10 stars.
This film chronicles the entire life of Chaplin in chronological order and does an excellent job of doing so. The film has a promising start detailing Chaplin's poverty plagued childhood and then his rise to early stardom in Hollywood. However, this is where the greatness of the movie ends. In focusing on Chaplin's continuing stardom and the inclusion of talkies into the mainstream, this movie starts to fade and dwell only in Chaplin's personal life. Now I must admit there are some things of Chaplin's personal life that were of interest, but too much time was wasted on his various tyrsts and his unending appetite for young ladies.
Downey Jr. plays Chaplin to the best of his tremendous acting ability and was definitely merited in getting the academy award nomination. I felt that had this movie told more of Chaplin's dealings with Hollywood and how he went about creating his films, Downey Jr. would have undoubtedly won. The majority of the large name supporting cast (Kline, Tomei, Hopkins, etc.) played well into the film, although none of them really added that extra punch to the story. Perhaps with the exception of Geraldine Chaplin who did a wonderful job playing her own grandmother.
I was very touched by the end of the film in which we see Charlie in the dark at the 1975 Academy Awards wacthing clips of his movies. He was there to receive his lifetime achievement award and didn't believe that the audience would receive his films all that well. This showed that after all the years, all he really wanted was acceptance from America which had been his home for many years. This was also the first time he had been on American soil in over 20 years after being denied re-entry to the country on the basis that he was a communist. (Which were entirely false allegations.) This scene came close to perfectly ending the film, however, I felt that it should have shown Chaplin accepting the award.
I really enjoyed this film, but still believe that Attenborough could have done better had he not dwelled so much in Chaplin's personal relationships and more in his great career and the stories behind the story. I would recommend this film to anyone who enjoys films.
7/10 stars.