An average movie

To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this flick but since it is included in the ‘They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They?’ list, I thought I might as well check it out. By now, I’m getting slowly acquainted with Ernst Lubitsch’s work and I have to admit that the directing was really solid on this silent feature. I also really enjoyed the acting, even though Irene Rich at 35 years old seemed to be too young to play May McAvoy’s mother and May McAvoy at 25 years old seemed to be too old to play her daughter. Indeed, there was in fact less than 10 years difference between the two women which was pretty obvious. Anyway, the main issue was above all with the story which was just too light for my taste. In fact, it was borderline tedious. Basically, it was a typical melodrama from the time period focusing on the so-called difficult life of a rather vapid social climber and, well, you can’t guess I’m not a fan of the genre. To make things worse, the other characters, all from the upper class, were actually not much better than Mrs. Erlynne. At least, she did redeem herself at the end, jeopardizing her whole future for her child so she wasn’t completely rotten after all. I have to admit that I was also surprised that Lady Windermere never found out that Mrs. Erlynne was actually her mother. In fact, we also never found out at all why she actually left her child and why Lady Windermere believed all these years that her mother was dead. Anyway, to conclude, even if I didn’t care much for this story, I have to admit that the damned thing was well made and very well acted so it is still worth a look, especially if you like the genre or if you are interested in Ernst Lubitsch’s work.