The Artist

Dial down your expectations for The Artist. Yes, it is good - as well as rather impressive that the director star, Michel Hazanavicius, manages to pull off a black-and-white silent film in an era that is ready to shift into 3-D. But it is not the best film of the year per the New York Film Critics. For one thing, it is too simplistic and lightweight to have any real lasting impact on the audience. It's a movie movie that certainly can and will charm film buffs.  The film is, if anything, an ode to the silent era and at times feels like a stunt to see if the filmmaker could make a silent film. He can. Bravo. But being that the movie seems to only exist as an artifact to prove a point it ends up feeling rather thin.

There are many things I found lacking about the film... suffice it to say if it were 60 minutes long it might work better. I'll also add that there is one sequence that is brilliant to the point that if the film followed that particular narrative twist it would have put the film into a fun gonzo orbit somewhere in the realm of Being John Malkovich. But, alas, what we have is a fairly entertaining and unique film with some nice - albeit predictable - moments. But nothing more.