An average movie

I'm a huge Michael Caine fan and since the ratings concerning this flick were pretty good here on Listal and on IMDB, I was definitely eager to check it out. Eventually, even though the whole thing was rather intriguing, I can't say I was really blown away. First of all, there were 2 small things that bothered me. First, the music was terribly annoying and distracting. You know, it was one of those awful 80's soundtracks with some awful keyboards... Secondly, I thought that Julie Walters looked way too old for the part. I mean, she was supposed to be 26 but looked 36, eventually she was in fact 33 years old when she made this movie. But those were small critics. What really bothered me was the way Julie Walters started as an ignorant working class girl and ended up as someone completely different, some educated and articulated young woman. It was displayed as if the working class was kind of stupid and worthless and as if educated people are way smarter and interesting. It felt rather awkward and rather bothered me. Furthermore, like Roger Ebert pointed out, it is one of those movies when they are constantly claiming that they are reading tons of books but you don't feel that anything is actually really happening. Still, I can't dismiss this flick. Indeed, Michael Caine was really great, completely spellbinding to watch and gave one of his best performances (As a matter of fact, it is his favourite film of his own, and the performance he's the most proud of). Anyway, to conclude, even though the whole thing was rather disapppointing, it remains an interesting movie and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are a fan of his work.

6/10