Gigi (1958): Eitan's Take

With all due respect to Gena's lovely mother, Gigi is just not my thing. At two hours, it was two hours too long. These French parlor movies are just miserable for me; take everything I loved about An American in Paris and everything I hate about the Princess Diary movies, mash them together for a 116 minute homage to manners, big dresses, gentlemen in tophats and canes, cheese, fountains, and how to turn women into coffee-serving machines for a man's infinite pleasure, and you get Gigi. Shira seemed unsurprised to find that I was far more interested in playing with our kitten Leroy than actually watch the movie.

After the complex moral fables woven through The Bridge on the River Kwai, Gigi is not just a letdown because it is so empty and trivial and garish; it is a letdown because it advocates ridiculous and offensive morals. Early in the film, Gaston is congratulated for his amazing achievement... breaking a woman's heart so badly that she commits suicide. "Congratulations on the suicide!" all his friends cheer. This is not only bad plot. It made me ill. Ditto to the opening and closing song, "Thank Heaven for Little Girls," sung by Honore with such pedophilic glee that I would have turned off the movie the first time had I not committed myself to watching the it for this project.

The movie also sets a really poor example: listen to your nitwit grandmother and great aunt, commit yourself to a life of corset-bound unhappiness, obsess over emeralds and pearls, lose your ENTIRE sense of fun and spunky attitude, and maybe -- just maybe, if you compromise everything that could make you a fun and NORMAL person -- you'll get to wear a big purple dress and ride around in a carriage while an old man sings about how he spies on young girls playing in parks. The rest of the songs are awful and unmemorable, especially the one where the "chorus" whispers nasty things about Gaston and his first girlfriend while they pass through a ballroom. Hideous tempos, awful lyrics, and even more ghastly melodies.

I was told to look out for this movie, and now I know why. 3/10, ONLY for the impeccable production design and lush cinematography, as well as for Leslie Caron's eyelash-batting.