Gone with the Long Winded

Rating: 3/10 (18 March 2007)

I'll freely admit my girlfriend and I have quite different tastes, but we usually both recognise really great films when we see them. This meeting of minds, alas, has not happened for the much-vaunted classic 'Gone with the Wind' - she loves the costumes and Vivien Leigh; I loathe the slave-era nostalgia, weak script, hammy acting, overlong show-time (and I'm a Peter Jackson fan) and above all, Vivien Leigh. Only Clark Gable gives a creditable performance as the charming rogue, Rhett Butler.
On the first viewing, the film lost me early on with the depiction of cheerful, singing slaves returning from a day in the fields; it continued to elude me as Scarlett O'Hara, initially portrayed vividly as a spoiled, shrill, ego-centric rich girl, proceeded through the film to become...well...a spoiled, shrill, ego-centric rich woman. If I ever hear her breathily begin a sentence with "Oh, Rhett!" one more time, I think I may scream.
For sure the most overrated film in the IMDb top #250 I have seen, more so than Citizen Kane or Dr. Strangelove, both of which have at least some merit beyond the production values.