Singing? in the Rain
Not the light-hearted, upbeat, whimsical musical that people make it out to be, but rather a dark, chilling and dispiriting expose of the superficial and manipulative world of show business. A feel-bad movie through and through.
Erm, don?t mind me. It's just that I know and love so many of the songs from this thing and have been wanting to see the film itself for the longest, but now that I have I can't help but feel disappointed (that I've repeatedly heard it referred to as one of the "Greatest Movies of All Time" doesn't help). The musical numbers remained perfectly charming, and many of them were splendidly choreographed, but it seemed to me that there was something quite intuitively wrong with the storyline...am the only person who - shock shock horror horror - felt kinda bad for the Lina character? True, she has an utterly ear-bleeding set of vocals (though she can hardly be blamed for that much), she shows a vindictive side at one point and there is very arguably something of
in her attitude toward Gene Kelly, but the story quite happily ignores the fact that the studio has essentially used her, and the smug contempt with which the other characters all felt the need to treat her from beginning to end kind of got to me.
I was particularly irked when they started preaching from their pulpit to her about her (self-defensive) efforts to stifle Debbie Reynolds? acting career, considering that
they had all been poised to send her own career down the tubes, with the added clause that they also intended to publicly humiliate her (Lina?s solution to the problem would at least have kept everyone concerned in employment, if not the spotlight)?oh, the hypocrisy. For all her faults, Lina generally seemed so stupid and pathetic - seeing her shoved hard and flat upon her face was not something I particularly enjoyed.
I'm guessing that it's good reputation is based more upon the songs and the asthetics than anything else. There were a couple of good laughs to be had from the plot, but it ultimately felt hollow and unsatisfying. I'll get over it I'm sure, but right now I can't get beyond the feeling that something or other has been ruined. I won't be able to hum the titular track for quite some time without rekindling that little pang of irritation...
Still, never mind, eh? The student cinema has
Hairspray on later this week - hopefully that will cheer me up.