Kubrick's beautiful museum tour bore.

Rating: 6/10 (24 December 2018)

Stanley Kubrick offers up end to end JMW Turner landscapes along with some eye popping portraiture of 18th century styled Marisa Berenson in this stunningly photographed visual masterpiece lensed by John Alcott. But given its lengthy running time featuring a dreadfully miscast Ryan O'Neal as the title character it amounts to little more than a museum tour; and even The Louvre gets tiresome after three hours.

Youthful Redmond Brady falls for his cousin Nora, getting himself into a duel with an English Army Captain and killing him causing him to flee Ireland, be waylaid by highwaymen, join the army, desert, sleep with the farmer's wife, join the Prussian Army, hook up with an Irish card sharp and marry into title and property the massive success he had hoped to become before a swift downturn in fortune.
In the hands of a capable actor of the day, Barry Lyndon may well have ranked as one of Kubrick's better films but O'Neal simply rings hollow from end to end going from an overgrown chubby cheeked young adult to a dissipated, aging old man with the healthy glow of Malibu Ryan still in evidence. His lilt is a timid wisp and Kubrick's incessant close-ups of his lifeless look of hurt an indignation after awhile can no longer be assuaged by Stanley taking us on frequent trips to the country.
Michael Hordern lends the imagery and the dignity it demands with his narration while chamber orchestras bang out Vivaldi, Bach and Schubert among others to present us with one gracious tableau after the next but with O'Neal as the linchpin to this picaresque journey across the magnificent countryside of Ireland and GB the picture staggers more than gallops.
Kubrick himself bears blame with a running time that includes four duels, the first offering one of the film's more expedient moments while two others run inexorably overlong. His mesmerizing candle lit interior shots at times seem like they will run the length the stick or at least until the band takes a break.
Barry Lyndon may be the prettiest girl at the dance by far but it lacks the energy of Tom Jones (1962) before it, along with Albert Finney and a magnificent supporting cast carrying it along at break neck speed. It also had an outstanding look but more importantly a heart and vitality that Lyndon lacks barring it from the pantheon status that its look commands.