A bit shaky at times and a little overrated, but the strong second half of the film makes it worthwhile

Rating: 6/10 (2 May 2014)

Beginning in 1927, the Artist follows silent movie star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) during the height of his career. Whilst filming one of his films he meets a young dancer Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo). The pair strike up a friendship and George persuades Peppy to become an actress and assists her in every way he can to make this happen. He succeeds in helping her, but finds himself being dropped as an actor when film director Al Zimmer (John Goodman)decides that he needs some young fresh faces to appear in his new 'talkie' films. As a result of this, Valentin finds himself on the bottom rung of the ladder whilst Miller's career and popularity soars as the new 'face' of talkies.
As I mentioned above in my summary, this film ended up being good in the end, Valentin's self destructive behaviour when he's dropped as a silent actor is the highlight of the film. It is harrowing and moving to see this man go from being at the top to being at the bottom - his wife leaves him and he is forced to sack his butler/servant Clifton (James Cromwell). He's also forced to auction most of his valuables and he also contemplates suicide. It's a testament to Dujardin's acting to be able to convey so much emotion without saying anything at all. I also liked Peppy Miller's character - she could have quite easily just carried on with her career making shed loads of money and forget all about Valentin, but she doesn't because she clearly has a conscience and she can't bear to see Valentin ending up with nothing. I thought it was very touching towards the end of the film when Miller refuses to do another film unless Valentin is included in its production - that final scene at the end where we hear everyone speak and see Miller and Valentin dancing together was a wonderful moment in the film.
The weak areas in this film for me were the first 30 minutes. Truth be told, I found the snippets of Valentin's film and his dancing around on stage with a dog to be rather boring (this film is billed as a Comedy/Drama so perhaps this part was meant to be the Comedy, but I didn't find it funny). I also didn't like all the scenes with Valentin and his wife - they were also quite dull. Her character wasn't developed at all and then she just ups and leaves him when he needs her the most. Very strange.
The Artist is a good film where its strengths outweigh its weaknesses. Dujardin won the actor for best Oscar, but I personally felt that every single person involved gave 110% in this film. Dujardin's fall from hero to zero is the strongest part of the film and thankfully it's this aspect of the film that gets the most focus.I'll concede that this is far from a masterpiece and garnered way too much praise when it was released but it's good enough for a recommendation.