Funny Girl

Starring: Barbra Streisand, Omar Sharif, Kay Medford, Anne Francis, Walter Pidgeon, Mae Questal, Gerald Mohr, Frank Faylen, Gertrude Flynn
Directed by: William Wyler
Rating: G
Genre: Musical, Comedy, Drama
1968

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: An entertainer (Barbra Streisand) rises to fame and fortune by leveraging her unique talent and humor.

Review:
Tim: I really tried with Funny Girl. I know it's a famous musical, an Academy Award winner. I'm a big fan of William Wyler. I really wanted to like this movie, but I just couldn't. I tried to focus on the positives, but ultimately, they are outweighed by the negatives. This is simply not a very good film.

One of the big issues is that the story isn't interesting enough to hold our attention for 2 hours and 31 minutes. These stage adaptations to the screen are typically this long, so it's not that movie itself is overly long. It's too long given the subject matter. Compare this film to movies like My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, Yentl- those movies felt more epic, more substantial. There was enough depth to the characters and story to hold your attention for the long runtime. That's not the case here. This movie eventually feels like it's far less about Fanny Brice, her career, and her success. It's about her relationship to Nick, who is a flawed and ultimately annoying character. It's much harder to watch a 2.5 hour movie about a failed relationship that was doomed to fail and should have failed. Why would we invest that much time in this story?

I recognize this complaint is more subjective, but I'm not the biggest Barbra Streisand fan, at least not on film. I know she won the Academy Award for Best Actress here, but I'd argue she doesn't give a great film performance. She gives a great Broadway performance. This situation always feels somewhat unfair to me. Streisand originated the role on Broadway and obviously had a lot of practice with it. She's cast in the film, in her first movie role. The problem is that she doesn't transition her performance to film. I wouldn't expect that she would understand how to do that at this point in her career, but it impacts the movie. I truly believe the type of performance, the approach to the character, everything that an actor does is fundamentally different on stage than film. Sure, they are closely connected with some overlap. But, a great stage performance doesn't automatically translate into a great film performance (and vice versa). Streisand gives a great stage performance, not a great film performance. I'm quite frankly surprised she won the Academy Award, although to be clear, she tied with Katherine Hepburn. For the record, Hepburn was fantastic in The Lion in Winter, a much better performance given in a much better film. Streisand certainly hams it up and it's obvious she is confident in the role. She does bring great energy, but I never really cared about her character or her plight. I wish her character spent less time worrying about a man and more time focused on herself.

I really like Omar Sharif, but I didn't care for his performance here. His makeup was especially bad, but his performance felt forced. It's odd, because he was having an affair with Streisand, but I didn't get great chemistry between them. His performance is fine, but I've marveled at his work before. I wasn't doing that here. The rest of the supporting cast worked well, with few standouts. I will state that I really enjoyed Walter Pidgeon's performance as Mr. Ziegfeld.

Another slight issue I have with this film is that it's definitely first a musical and a biopic far, far second. Every movie will take liberties with the source material, but I'm not sure why this one claimed to be a Fanny Brice story when so little of the movie is true to her life story. There was no need to tie this film to a real woman when so much was changed.

I have to admit, I didn't love the musical numbers, either. I just cringed through "You Are Woman, I am Man". I mean, seriously? Streisand is a talented singer and performer and brings that energy to every song, but there weren't great showstopping numbers here. I recognize many will disagree with me, but that's my feeling. I didn't love any of them.

Funny Girl is never a bad movie. It's a completely decent film, but it felt far too close to a Broadway show. It needed a bit more distance. Maybe this was Streisand's constant meddling in the production, or maybe her affair with Sharif complicated the process, but I'm convinced this film is grossly overrated. It's not even a good movie, it should never have tied for an Academy Award. I know people who love this film, but I'm absolutely not one of them.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: The Sound of Music, Yentl, My Fair Lady, Roman Holiday