An average movie

Since this movie has a rather lame reputation, I had some low expectations but, since it was starring Laurence Olivier, I thought I might as well check it out. To be honest, I have to admit that I had pretty much zero knowledge about Neil Diamond before watching this flick but it seemed that it was another rather misguided vanity project involving a music artist trying to get involved in the movie business such as ‘Glitter’, ‘Crossroads’, ‘Burlesque’, ‘Cool as Ice’, ‘From Justin to Kelly’, ‘Under the Cherry Moon’,… Well, it turned out to be a weird movie, that’s for sure. First of all, I have to admit that I haven't seen the original version from 1927 but this movie really had nothing to do with jazz so, if you are not aware that it was a remake, well, the title will be rather bewildering (it was definitely to me). Then, within 5 mins, you get to see Neil Diamond performing on stage with some blackface make-up which was obviously rather cringe-inducing to behold. Furthermore, and I have to admit that it was a detail which did elude me while I was watching the damned thing, as pointed by Roger Ebert, Neil Diamond was at 40 years old actually way too old to play this character. To make things worse, Diamond was actually pretty weak but, even one of the best actors ever like Olivier also did deliver a rather poor performance here as well. And yet, somehow, I don’t think the damned thing was a total disaster though. Indeed, I think it was refreshing to see an emerging music talent not struggling with substance abuse or fame but with the fact that he had a whole life, a life filled with religious traditions, already planned for him. The fact that Neil Diamond was himself Jewish and was coming from a similar background as his character was probably the only thing that did really work in this movie. Anyway, to conclude, I think I was probably too generous with my rating here, the damned thing was pretty weak and you should probably avoid it.