A film about which almost everything is told, a film showing English aristocrats, good-natured colonels, princes and beggars, as well as street flower sellers with a sharp tongue. The typical streets of Edward VII’s London, where everyone is in a hurry, thinking and thinking. For a moment, the endless bustle can be abruptly interrupted, and the film in a leisurely rhythm will show the story, at first glance old as the world itself, but not lost relevance to this day. A story of transformation, a tale of love, emotions hitting the beat of André Previn’s music.
Chocolate, melting in her mouth gorgeous chocolate, is most likely what Miss Doolittle is dreaming of right now, perhaps at times the dreams of chocolate are interrupted by pictures of the beautiful prince and then back to candy, and involuntarily a smile appears on Eliza’s face. Brushing aside such thoughts, which had the audacity to enter her head at all, the girl’s happy face is replaced by a wistful expression. Elisa, a street flower vendor, can’t really imagine how the elite of society live in their chambers, where every high-ranking person has a servant. No, she does not know how the people of high society live, until, because of her long tongue, Professor Higgins – a linguist, and a man with a very emotional temperament, who has a weakness for experimentation, ready for the most dubious bets just to prove his point.
George Ciucor shows his audience exactly what the mass viewer wants to see, for surely most boys will discern Professor Higgins, and girls will compare themselves to Miss Doolittle in some way. Thus, “My Fair Lady” has no gender restrictions and embarrasses neither gender by putting familiar themes into play in the manner of a comedy musical. Speaking of comedy, there is a good chance that over the years some of the jokes will become outdated, no longer relevant. But this does not doom the picture to the fact that it will not keep the mood or will be boring, no, just the witticisms of those times will be a little alien to the modern viewer. Scenes like throwing slippers at the professor or Hugh Ikering nervously walking around the room, coupled with all such episodes, give a good dose of positivity. It is worth mentioning that in spite of the long chronometry not a single element, not a single scene seems superfluous, and all the actors with due professionalism breathed life into their characters, giving them individual characters, yes, even a small, seemingly insignificant episode turns out to be very important, for example, when the phonetics expert bows incongruously, it is nothing, but such little things act on certain points of human perception, for example such a scene presses the “button” of smile and light laughter. There is nothing superfluous in “My Fair Lady”, but still there is one drawback, that in the harsh reality of modern society there is no place for such kind, fairy stories anymore, but who does not like fairy tales, if they are not pointless, beautiful, surprisingly kind and developing imagination, able to touch even the most callous heart.
I, your humble servant, the first time I watched this beautiful musical I even cried, there were tears of happiness, and my friend thought me too emotional, though sometimes he doesn’t mind watching old Indian movies waiting for the predictable but desirable Happy End. But come on, there are more positive emotions from watching a Cukor film, and if the actors bring a tear to your eye, it will be a tear of joy.
Truly, we’re not looking for logic or unpredictable plot twists in “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” as in “My Fair Lady,” here the logic is emotional rather than logical, but that doesn’t spoil the final product’s quality or detract from your curiosity about it.
It is, of course, possible to criticize the brainchild of George Cukor, but taking into account the colossal work of the film crew, the charming acting of Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison, Wilfrid Hyde-White, the flavor of their characters, the competent humor and self-irony, it would be better to write a negative review about such a film. To write a negative review of My Fair Lady, you have to have more arguments behind you and be a very picky critic who doesn’t like musical comedy melodramas. To be honest, there are almost no such critics (set up to take it apart by the screws), so if there was a blow from the critical experts, who watch the film a little earlier than the common folk, it was very inconsequential, thereby the people warmly accepted George Cukor’s creation. In addition, it is one of the rare films that does not have a criticism section on Wikipedia, why criticize it when you can praise it, and compositions like “So You Wait Higgins” and others became very close to my heart.
