Beware of the overhype!

Rating: 6/10 (21 December 2011)

If you can get your Weinstein-manipulated expectations WAY down from "Oscar" to "cute gimmick," then this cinematic truffle could very well satisfy – especially if you've ever seen and enjoyed a theatrical screening of a silent movie. There's a faithfulness to the spirit and techniques of the silent era that's undeniably impressive and will delight those few audience members (myself being one) who have enough familiarity with silent cinema to appreciate it.
But is it a movie that you should be running out to see because omnipresent web advertising says that it's an Oscar lock? Negative. If you DON'T have the required familiarity with the silent era, the charms and nostalgia evoked by the film will be completely lost on you, and you'll be far more dependent on the thin and unoriginal storyline for entertainment. (Note: the story borrows shamelessly from both SINGING IN THE RAIN and A STAR IS BORN and is fully consistent with the era's cornball aesthetic.) And even if you ARE familiar with silent cinema, "Oscar worthy" is going to seem like a stretch. Either way, if you really want to enjoy this movie, lowering your expectations from their current hype-elevated levels is imperative. (Anybody notice how remarkably similar Weinstein's overhype campaign for this film is to the one he successfully ran for Roberto Benigni's LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL years ago? Anybody watched that movie since?)
I first saw this film at the Toronto Film Festival with a full house at the spacious Elgin Theater, and it received a favorable albeit muted response from the audience. (By comparison, I saw AMELIE at the same theater ten years prior, and it received a ten-minute standing ovation at the end.) If I'd known at the time that I'd just seen the year's BEST movie, I would have been depressed over what this portended for the year-end releases.
You simply can't help being aware of the limitations of silent movies -- and thankful for the quantum improvement that the introduction of sound made -- no matter how deft the filmmakers are in recreating the look and feel of a bygone era. It's a movie-making era that you're glad IS bygone -- as evidenced by the inability of any of the gushing critics to cite a single color talkie favorite that they wish had been a b&w silent instead.
I say "A" for cinematic conceit and "C" for entertainment value ("B+" for silent film buffs).