It's a flimsy intrigue, but the main characters make it a dream of perfect entertainment, beauty and romanticism. Fred Astaire was well advanced in his 50s when he made this film, and Audrey Hepburn was twenty years younger, and yet their peculiar romance works, although they make diametrically contrary characters, he a fast photographer for a fashion magazine and she a very intellectual librarian. But the question is if it is not Kay Thompson that makes this film. She was in very few films, and this one was her third and last major performance (in her 40s), and although she was not a real film star at all, she absolutely dominates the film. Although it's a very flimsy and superficial intrigue, the dialog is brilliant throughout, especially as Audrey all the time keeps spicing it with her philosophical conversation, which actually gets Kay Thompson intrigued in it was well, and it all turns out into some psychological education, as they all learn something about empathy - Audrey is the teacher, or rather the informer and awakener, while Fred and Kay never heard of such a thing before, but they do learn. To all this comes the marvellous old music of George Gershwin and the absolutely splendid direction by Stanley Donen. Every time I have seen this film (since 1958, the first time,) I have loved it even more, for its charm will keep growing with you and within you. It is all too obvious, and you can't miss it in the film, that Audrey Hepburn loved making this film with Fred Astaire, and she admitted that herself on TV decades afterwards. The imagination, the innovations, the variation of the performances and playacting, the intoxicatingly beautiful settings - everything combines in making this film one of the most precious jewels in all film musical history, and it will keep growing in its invaluable preciousness.
Review of Funny Face
