Ryan O'Neal's Best Performance to Date!

Rating: Null/10 (5 September 2011)

Ryan O'Neal has given what should have been an Academy Award nominated performance in a title role of "Barry Lyndon" with a top notch cast featuring Sir Michael Hordern as the narrator along with Marisa Berenson as his wife and other familiar British theatrical actors in the cast. Sadly, O'Neal wasn't nominated but his performance is stellar perhaps the finest of his long movie career. Stanley Kubrick is the most unlikely director to direct a classic historic piece based on a novel by William Makepeace Thackeray. Of course, my favorite Kubrick film is "The Shining" and always will be. This film garnered Oscars for art direction, cinematography where natural lighting was preferred, costumes, and original score in music. The film can be slow at times but the pace picks up along the way with Hordern's narration which makes it simply easy to understand the situation. Everybody gives a stellar performance under Kubrick's direction but there are some inappropriate sexual scenes which are overshadowed by the story of Barry Lyndon himself. If you love Kubrick, you will appreciate his take on the typically British novel.