A good movie

I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it seemed to have a decent reputation, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, to be honest, I had a rather hard time to get into the damned thing. Sure, I have to admit that the fact that I did watch on it on the BBC without subtitles probably didn’t help. Indeed, I was rather confused by the opening scenes and it took me a while to figure out what was going on. Still, I think it went beyond that. Anyway, the biggest asset of this movie was obviously Bette Davis and she was nominated for the Academy Award for the Best Actress in a Leading Role for this movie (in fact, she would be nominated 8 times in 10 years back then which is quite impressive). And, indeed, there is no doubt that Davis was really good here (it was apparently her favorite role). However, I don’t think this movie had much else to offer after all. I mean, the plot was actually really thin. Basically, you were introduced to this rich young woman who was right away seriously ill and, for the rest of the movie, we see how she handles this predicament which was, as far as I was concerned, not really fascinating, in spite of Davis’s efforts. Furthermore, even though the rest of the cast was praised, I thought all their characters were really flat. Still, it was rather fun to see Humphrey Bogart a couple of years before he got his big break with ‘The Maltese Falcon’. It was especially interesting to see him playing such an emasculated man when he will be mostly remembered for playing some major tough guys. Eventually, I might check again this movie in the future to make up my mind about the damned thing. Anyway, to conclude, even if this movie didn’t really impress me, it was still a decent watch and it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.