This movie is like a sparkling-clean room; it's nice to look at and be inside of, but doesn't make me feel much beyond that. At the start it seemed like it was going to blow me away. The dialogue is like Shakespeare meets film-noir (layered and fast-paced). The camerawork is beautiful, with huge sweeping shots offset by close-ups when people are locked in dialogue. As it went on though, it started to feel flat. The plot never really went anywhere; it's basically a family-drama set in medieval Europe, where everyone ends up right where they started. And while the dialogue is snappy and the acting is terrific (O'Toole and Hepburn were great), there isn't much reason given for why anybody likes/hates anybody else. It almost felt like the screenwriters just tried to come up with the wittiest responses each character could make in the moment, without considering if it forwarded the plot or developed the character at all.
Review of The Lion in Winter
