Based on the true-life discovery of the Sutton Hoo, this quiet, unassuming film is the best I’ve seen so far this year. The story unfolds plainly, with an effortless grace that lends the proceedings a certain dignity, and both Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan give wonderful, moving performances. Frankly, Fiennes’ performance in this film should rank among his finest; he disappears into his role so absolutely that I barely recognized him.
In Edwardian London, a Cockney flower girl who aspires to a better life subjects herself to the instruction of a callous Phonetics professor, with miraculous results.
Excellent Hollywood adaptation of the Lerner & Loewe Broadway blockbuster (in turn adapted from George Bernard Shaw’s stage play, Pygmalion) was a practically-guaranteed smash hit—nearly all of the original Broadway cast was reunited, with the notable exception of Julie Andrews (despite her critically acclaimed Broadway résumé, studio head Jack L. Warner was unwilling to gamble…
A seedy fake evangelist rolls into a small midwest town with a broken truck and kills time waiting for repairs by fleecing the out-of-work populace. This too-familiar revival drama is equal parts The Rainmaker, with the conviction of neither; it begins somewhere in the neighborhood of light satire, hits a bump at serious drama, and stalls. Martin’s fast-talking self-assurance is convincing enough; so is Winger’s grounded performance; very little else is. A modest sleeper (with more narrative closure) might lurk under the hood of this over-produced spectacle, but it never opens up.