Great film for misanthropes

Rating: 8/10 (18 November 2015)

Barry Lyndon, 18th Century gadabout, is an idiot. Like the Count Bullingdon says in the movie, he's a "common opportunist", and it's kind of amazing he succeeded as well as he did. Barry gave little to the world— only took. He lied when convenient, and abandoned when the going got tough. Even when he might have righted his course and made something of himself, Barry ducked out to chase more exciting (though less legitimate) prospects. As I get older, it becomes impossible to sympathize with the character, and yet the film about him seems no less great, no less significant.
Stanley Kubrick's directorial follow-up to A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (after a failed attempt to make a feature based on Napoleon) offers little of the visceral excitement of the previous movie, and even less of the cosmic significance of the one before that (1968's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY), but is nevertheless one of the legendary director's great films. BARRY LYNDON is based on an 1844 novel by William Makepeace Thackeray, charting the development (and eventual demise) of a young upstart originally known as Redmond Barry— from his humble beginnings as a dim-witted Irish country boy, to his misadventures in English high society. How Barry gets from one place to the other is the plot of the movie, and as much as I cringe at the character's various life decisions, Kubrick's pacing (and gorgeous period imagery) keeps me glued into this movie throughout its generous duration.
Since the movie is so well made, it's easier to forgive the fact that the title character is basically a scourge to society. Ryan O'Neal's Barry is a mildly charming parasite, offering no real concession to endearment to the audience (or his fictional peers), other than a vague, naive charisma, and occasional personal victories along the way to ruin. I don't feel particularly bad spoiling that Barry's end is a tragic one, because Kubrick's arc for the movie is almost precisely 50% rise and 50% fall, which means a brutal, extended descent for viewers. Maybe you have to be a misanthrope to really love this movie, or maybe it's just fun to watch people fail so spectacularly. Either way, the film succeeds in spite of its downwardly spiraling story.
Big wins for this movie include: - Good acting. O'Neal has sometimes been criticized for his performance (including suspect Irish accent), but in my view, he plays Barry very well, right down to the s**t-eating, vacant charm. Hardy Kruger (as the Prussian Captain Potsdorf) is also great, and in the scenes between his character and O'Neal's, comes off as both very intelligent, and equally open to ambiguous corruption. Very Kubrick, really, and the entire cast serves its purpose to a tee. - Great cinematography. Famously, Kubrick used only lighting that would have been possible in the late 18th Century, which means candle-lit shots and gorgeous, widescreen landscapes of England and Ireland. - Great period score, including pieces by Handel, Vivaldi and traditional Irish folk music played by the Chieftans. Handel's "Sarabande" in particular features so heavily in the film as to seem a supporting character
Things about BARRY LYNDON that *might* make it hard to love: - Not only is O'Neal's Barry not smart or particularly interesting, he's also not well-liked. Most of the movie finds him succeeding through sheer dumb luck or opportunism, while his observers notice and (justifiably) resent his fate. Barry's not even a good underdog, because he gets MANY chances to right his way, but manages to screw them all up. - It's a long movie, 3 Hours, 4 minutes. And it's a slow one too, though that could be considered one of its strengths, if you consider how close to "period" Kubrick tried to make this movie. Still, as a viewer, you need to be in this for the long haul if you want to extract its charms.
All of that said, I've loved BARRY LYNDON from the first time I saw it. Of course, I'm a Kubrick fan, and his senses of pacing and sly, black humor are all over the film. His movies (discounting anything starring Kirk Douglas) don't typically offer heroic protagonists, and this one's no different. The magic is in the exquisitely dark story, and of course, the beauty of the visuals and music. I rank this movie behind only 2001 and PATHS OF GLORY in Kubrick's canon, and recommend it whole-heartedly to neophyte Kubrick fans, or anyone into great black comedy.