I think it's best if I begin this review with honesty, because that is the best policy: I misjudged this film. Although I love old movies, sometimes I have a tendency to harbor the expectation that I will get offended before I even start watching. I thought this was just going to be another dumb movie about sex, but it turned out I was wrong. I came across Alfie on the Pluto TV app, but I didn't catch it from the beginning. I had read about it on Wikipedia some years before, so I basically knew what happened. I discovered it's on YouTube, so I thought I'd give it a watch, since I had never seen the film in its entirety. I really liked it. It has its share of drama, and there are some funny moments as well. It's a lot better than the Italian Job.
Michael Caine plays a young man (well, he was 32 or 33 at the time, so I don't know if that was considered young during the 60s. I'm guessing when this film was made it was commonplace for people to already be settled down by the time they were 30. I bet if you were in your 30s and still sleeping around, you were considered an anomaly) who has an aversion to monogamous relationships. He gallivants with both single and married women. I guess the terminology for this is a "ladykiller," but let's be real - he had a sex addiction. I'm not a man, but I'm pretty sure it's not healthy for a man to flirt, make out, and sleep with every woman he encounters. The way he talks about women, you'd think he was referring to a loaf of bread. He doesn't see them as human beings who have feelings. He wants a woman to go above and beyond for him, but if she were to catch a cold, he wouldn't even care enough to bring her a bowl of soup. He has varying situations with each of his girlfriends (if you can call them that), which is quite honestly, a hot mess:
1. The movie opens with him spending the evening with a married woman, Siddie (Millicent Martin), and she goes back to her husband once their meetup is over.
2. He impregnates the woman who is his steady girlfriend, Gilda (Julia Foster), and is not excited when his son is born. He continues to flirt and make out with other women while he's living with Gilda. Once his son starts walking, Alfie discovers that he enjoys playing with him. Just when he's becoming a wonderful father, he gets into an argument with Gilda after she tells him she is thinking about marrying another man (Humphrey, the bus conductor, played by Graham Stark) and leaves. He's ever so confident that he doesn't need her anymore.
3. He uses his lung examination as an opportunity for a free therapy session by going off on a tangent about how he has the right to be in his son's life. The doctor informs him that he has shadows on his lungs, and this causes him to have a panic attack. He goes to stay at a sanitarium, befriends one of the other patients (Alfie Bass), and makes him mad because he was talking about his wife Lily (Vivien Merchant) as if to say she might be cheating on him.
3. He leaves the sanitarium, and during that time takes a job photographing tourists in London. That's when he meets an older, American woman, Ruby (Shelley Winters), and they exchange phone numbers.
4. He goes back to the sanitarium to talk to the man who he befriended, and Lily is present. He agrees to take her back home, and while doing so, goes on an impromptu date with her, rowing a boat along a lake and whatnot, then has sex with her.
5. On the way back he picks up a female hitchhiker named Annie (Jane Asher). When they return to London she lives with him and he treats her like a maid. During this time, he goes to Ruby's apartment to have sex with her. Later on he gets punched in the face at a nightclub by the guy who had originally offered to drive Annie to London (which was hilarious, by the way), manages to escape, goes home, and of course takes his anger out on Annie. During their argument, he admits to having read her diary, and then gets mad at her for getting mad at him. She gathers her things and leaves.
6. Lily becomes pregnant, and gets an illegal abortion.
If you can make it through him being narcissistic, arrogant, egotistical, and addressing women as "it," then you will like this movie, because believe it or not, Alfie does experience a transformation. During Lily's abortion procedure he goes out for a walk, and that's when he starts to feel lonely. He sees Gilda, his son, Humphrey, and their newborn daughter, leaving a church after the baby girl had just been baptized. This is a depressing moment for him. He could've been in Humphrey's place if he hadn't acted like such a jerk. You can't blame Gilda for marrying him. He was so thoughtful and compassionate. When Alfie returns to his apartment, he sees his dead child. It's a highly powerful scene. Upon realizing how much of a horrible person he is, he breaks down crying. At this point in the film, there aren't any other women left to keep him company. He finds out Ruby has started seeing a younger man, and Siddie only wants to be with her husband. When he asks if she wanted to hang out sometime (not his exact words), she replied with maybe, but he knew that maybe was actually a no.
Some people say this movie is dated, but I don't see how it's any different from what's going on nowadays. Men who are like Alfie still exist. They think they're entitled to sex, and they purposely try to make women feel uncomfortable. Well, maybe it's not intentional, but that's how it comes off. The way he stared at the doctor the whole time she was writing something down, and kept staring even after she noticed, it was like ohhhh-kay, weirdo alert! That was probably the most relatable scene I've ever watched in an old movie from my perspective as a young woman. You catch him staring. You look away. What's he doing when you look at him again?? He's still staring!! It's like seriously dude???? My theory is that people don't like this movie for either one of two reasons: they get tired of watching him jump from one woman's bed to another (which is understandable. I'm sure there were people who were unable to watch it to the end), or they're a man who treats women poorly in their own life, and the character of Alfie reminds them too much of themselves. Some folks will find this movie too real, and as a result become turned off by it. It didn't bother me. As I said before, I'm not a man, so I've never been guilty of talking down to women. I was friends with a man who was psychologically abusive, and I reached a point where I stopped corresponding with him. He gave off bad energy. If you're a male, and you're insensitive towards women, then this film will most likely be unpleasant for you. It's a realistic depiction of what happens when a man lives his life having casual sex and trying to avoid emotional attachment. It also shows what happens when a man continuously undermines a woman's self-esteem. At some point or another, he's going to end up alone. There's a valuable lesson at the end, and what I loved is the lesson wasn't implicit in its delivery. In fact, Alfie comes right out and says, and I'm paraphrasing, "you might have cars, money, and women, but if you don't have peace of mind, you might as well not have anything." This film exemplifies how talented of an actor Michael Caine is. He gave such a convincing performance. I use the word convincing because I'm sure he was/is kindhearted in real life, but he played a mean person so well. I thought him talking into the camera made the movie unique. He was even talking to the camera as he was being examined by the doctor, and it was funny, because it was like no one else knows there's a camera in the room but him. I did struggle to understand him here and there (his accent was one thing - that Cockney slang is when he lost me), but the story was easy to follow. I also thought it was sweet how the movie closed - he starts walking home with the stray dog from the beginning of the film.
Sorry, Hollywood, but the English make the best films. If you love old movies, and find character studies intriguing, I 100% recommend this.
Michael Caine plays a young man (well, he was 32 or 33 at the time, so I don't know if that was considered young during the 60s. I'm guessing when this film was made it was commonplace for people to already be settled down by the time they were 30. I bet if you were in your 30s and still sleeping around, you were considered an anomaly) who has an aversion to monogamous relationships. He gallivants with both single and married women. I guess the terminology for this is a "ladykiller," but let's be real - he had a sex addiction. I'm not a man, but I'm pretty sure it's not healthy for a man to flirt, make out, and sleep with every woman he encounters. The way he talks about women, you'd think he was referring to a loaf of bread. He doesn't see them as human beings who have feelings. He wants a woman to go above and beyond for him, but if she were to catch a cold, he wouldn't even care enough to bring her a bowl of soup. He has varying situations with each of his girlfriends (if you can call them that), which is quite honestly, a hot mess:
1. The movie opens with him spending the evening with a married woman, Siddie (Millicent Martin), and she goes back to her husband once their meetup is over.
2. He impregnates the woman who is his steady girlfriend, Gilda (Julia Foster), and is not excited when his son is born. He continues to flirt and make out with other women while he's living with Gilda. Once his son starts walking, Alfie discovers that he enjoys playing with him. Just when he's becoming a wonderful father, he gets into an argument with Gilda after she tells him she is thinking about marrying another man (Humphrey, the bus conductor, played by Graham Stark) and leaves. He's ever so confident that he doesn't need her anymore.
3. He uses his lung examination as an opportunity for a free therapy session by going off on a tangent about how he has the right to be in his son's life. The doctor informs him that he has shadows on his lungs, and this causes him to have a panic attack. He goes to stay at a sanitarium, befriends one of the other patients (Alfie Bass), and makes him mad because he was talking about his wife Lily (Vivien Merchant) as if to say she might be cheating on him.
3. He leaves the sanitarium, and during that time takes a job photographing tourists in London. That's when he meets an older, American woman, Ruby (Shelley Winters), and they exchange phone numbers.
4. He goes back to the sanitarium to talk to the man who he befriended, and Lily is present. He agrees to take her back home, and while doing so, goes on an impromptu date with her, rowing a boat along a lake and whatnot, then has sex with her.
5. On the way back he picks up a female hitchhiker named Annie (Jane Asher). When they return to London she lives with him and he treats her like a maid. During this time, he goes to Ruby's apartment to have sex with her. Later on he gets punched in the face at a nightclub by the guy who had originally offered to drive Annie to London (which was hilarious, by the way), manages to escape, goes home, and of course takes his anger out on Annie. During their argument, he admits to having read her diary, and then gets mad at her for getting mad at him. She gathers her things and leaves.
6. Lily becomes pregnant, and gets an illegal abortion.
If you can make it through him being narcissistic, arrogant, egotistical, and addressing women as "it," then you will like this movie, because believe it or not, Alfie does experience a transformation. During Lily's abortion procedure he goes out for a walk, and that's when he starts to feel lonely. He sees Gilda, his son, Humphrey, and their newborn daughter, leaving a church after the baby girl had just been baptized. This is a depressing moment for him. He could've been in Humphrey's place if he hadn't acted like such a jerk. You can't blame Gilda for marrying him. He was so thoughtful and compassionate. When Alfie returns to his apartment, he sees his dead child. It's a highly powerful scene. Upon realizing how much of a horrible person he is, he breaks down crying. At this point in the film, there aren't any other women left to keep him company. He finds out Ruby has started seeing a younger man, and Siddie only wants to be with her husband. When he asks if she wanted to hang out sometime (not his exact words), she replied with maybe, but he knew that maybe was actually a no.
Some people say this movie is dated, but I don't see how it's any different from what's going on nowadays. Men who are like Alfie still exist. They think they're entitled to sex, and they purposely try to make women feel uncomfortable. Well, maybe it's not intentional, but that's how it comes off. The way he stared at the doctor the whole time she was writing something down, and kept staring even after she noticed, it was like ohhhh-kay, weirdo alert! That was probably the most relatable scene I've ever watched in an old movie from my perspective as a young woman. You catch him staring. You look away. What's he doing when you look at him again?? He's still staring!! It's like seriously dude???? My theory is that people don't like this movie for either one of two reasons: they get tired of watching him jump from one woman's bed to another (which is understandable. I'm sure there were people who were unable to watch it to the end), or they're a man who treats women poorly in their own life, and the character of Alfie reminds them too much of themselves. Some folks will find this movie too real, and as a result become turned off by it. It didn't bother me. As I said before, I'm not a man, so I've never been guilty of talking down to women. I was friends with a man who was psychologically abusive, and I reached a point where I stopped corresponding with him. He gave off bad energy. If you're a male, and you're insensitive towards women, then this film will most likely be unpleasant for you. It's a realistic depiction of what happens when a man lives his life having casual sex and trying to avoid emotional attachment. It also shows what happens when a man continuously undermines a woman's self-esteem. At some point or another, he's going to end up alone. There's a valuable lesson at the end, and what I loved is the lesson wasn't implicit in its delivery. In fact, Alfie comes right out and says, and I'm paraphrasing, "you might have cars, money, and women, but if you don't have peace of mind, you might as well not have anything." This film exemplifies how talented of an actor Michael Caine is. He gave such a convincing performance. I use the word convincing because I'm sure he was/is kindhearted in real life, but he played a mean person so well. I thought him talking into the camera made the movie unique. He was even talking to the camera as he was being examined by the doctor, and it was funny, because it was like no one else knows there's a camera in the room but him. I did struggle to understand him here and there (his accent was one thing - that Cockney slang is when he lost me), but the story was easy to follow. I also thought it was sweet how the movie closed - he starts walking home with the stray dog from the beginning of the film.
Sorry, Hollywood, but the English make the best films. If you love old movies, and find character studies intriguing, I 100% recommend this.