2.5/5 Stars
As a theatre person, I guess it comes as a shock for some that I’ve never seen My Fair Lady.
So it may come as even more of a shock that after I finally did watch it – that I couldn’t have liked it any less than I did.
And it’s not just the percocet talking. (I AM at home recovering from ankle surgery, but that’s hardly relevant…)
The plot sounds simple and cute enough – Professor Henry Higgins takes a bet than he can convert a very cockney Eliza Doolittle into a lady. She should transform like a butterfly, in song and music and there should be some sort of love affair. Lovely.
The only problem is that within a minute of the film’s start (after a lengthy and highly unnecessary flowers montage) I was introduced to the most irritating leading lady I’ve ever seen onscreen. Percocet or not, I sat in front of my television and found myself quite loudly muttering, “Oh my GOD. SHUT UP,” at the screen. Audrey Hepburn is a nightmare. Maybe that’s supposed to show ‘how good she is’ — maybe that was the director’s choice. But I honestly struggled to sit through the plot setup. The voice was bad enough, but combine it with the whining, the stupidity, the ignorance… It was awful. When that ‘The Rain in Spain” song finally started, I wanted to stand up and cheer simply because I knew I wouldn’t need to hear that blathering street urchin voice again.
I watched the rest of the film out of sheer love for Rex Harrison, but nothing could win me over. I enjoy several songs from the show (and I call it ‘show’ because I know it was a musical first, and I’m hoping that Julie Andrews, lord bless her, as the original Eliza made the character far more likable.) and didn’t even know they were from it — and that still couldn’t save it for me.
I have to care about characters to get involved in a film – seeing as this film showed me the most annoying leading lady in history – that just wasn’t going to happen. I give My Fair Lady 2.5/5 Stars and having never seen Audrey Hepburn in anything else, really have little desire to see her in anything else either!
