The Artist

Indie, Drama
4 stars
Cute silent movie starring Jean Dujardin as a silent film star in the late 1920’s who meets a young up and comer (Berenice Bejo) during the transition to “talkies”. The charming story does get a little depressing for awhile though – in fact I’ll just say the first half is better. There is a lot of Academy Award buzz surrounding this film, but if anyone should be nominated it should be Uggie The Dog, who was awesome! I’ve always loved Dujardin with his expressive face, easy smile and charm. He was the highlight of a couple of so-so French films (OSS 117:Cairo, Nest of Spies and OSS 117: Lost in Rio – the Cairo one was the better of the two) as a sort of parody of James Bond and was the only thing that made them worth watching. Cute film.