Dark. Disturbing. Emotional. Compelling

Rating: 10/10 (28 February 2009)

What makes The Silence of the Lambs, which won the Oscar for Best Picture of 1991, a classic? It's not the story, involving a serial killer kidnapping a senator's daughter. There's nothing wrong with this story, but it's rather the characters that make this movie so memorable and powerful. Anthony Hopkins plays Dr. Hannibal Lecter, one of the greatest villains in movie history (if not the greatest), a perceptive psychiatrist turned cannibalistic killer turned prisoner. Jodie Foster plays Clarice, an FBI trainee who gets to know Hannibal, hoping he can help her with a current serial killer case. Hopkin's performance is mesmerizing. He's intelligent but a monster. He's frightening because, as Crawford tells Clarice, "you don't want Hannibal Lecter inside your head." But Clarice lets him inside her head, and breaks a number of other rules regarding how to talk to Hannibal. As Hannibal asks Clarice for details on her personal life, their meetings become a sort of twisted therapy, developing Clarice as a character and allowing Foster to deliver an impressive performance of her own when telling her lamb story.
The Silence of the Lambs is compelling, and frightening. The moth is creepy. Lecter's escape scene is, for me, the scariest thing in the film; his face is calm as he's killing the guards. The movie ends with Hannibal free again, a cliffhanger ending that (unfortunately) resulted in a disappointing sequel ten years later. The Silence of the Lambs is one of my all-time favourite films.