Great candyfloss, but still candyfloss

Rating: 3/10 (8 April 2012)

For 'The Artist' to win the accolades it has done is pretty telling of the Hollywood movie industry as a whole. A silent remake of 'A Star Is Born'? In 2012? It's beautifully done, and a few gags keep up your interest, namely the dream in which Georges imagines himself silent among foley hell, and in the end where he reveals his impenetrable accent, and I suppose the dog, which out-Mooses Moose from 'Frasier' deserves credit. But essentially The Artist is a shallow melodrama, and that's something which bogs it down in silent-movie tedium.
In parts this movie was very much like, and better than, one of Woody Allen's period pieces, with the well known faces (James Cromwell, John Goodman), mugging for all they are worth, and the whole 1929 feel is excellent. But to what end? To tell a story that is no different from one of the cheesy silent film romances that are now forgotten.