Reviews

Aside from two memorable songs by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields, (NOT credited anywhere in your blubbery listing of every cook, bottle washer, and uncredited extra involved in this film!) and a couple of delightful dance sequences, this is an appallingly bad picture. The plot, the script, the dialogue, the acting, and the direction (by George Stevens, no less!) is for the most part amateurish, even by the standards of the day. As charming and brilliantly talented as Fred and Ginger were, much of this film is painful to watch. The Bojangles dance sequence is especially hard to stomach - Astaire in blackface! - doing a tribute to the fabulous Bill Robinson while he was still very much alive and acknowledged to be a great star, even in that benighted racist age!

This is one of the best series on TV today. Hugh Laurie is an extraordinarily gifted actor, the rest of the cast is excellent and the writing and direction are superb. Dr. Gregory House is a medical protagonist who is the absolute opposite of a kindly old pill-pusher from 1950s TV. He is brilliant, complex and contradictory but not necessarily likable. Yet we keep coming back week after week because the series keeps us interested and informed and Hugh Laurie shows us a man we want to know. The special effects are remarkable and the show powerfully demonstrates the complexity of medical diagnosis and decision-making.

But it's Laurie's superb acting that gives the show most of its amazing power and punch. He makes us see and understand a gifted, complicated and probably unhappy human being whose diagnostic skills are superb but whose people skills are nil. House is rude to his staff, barely tolerates patients, believes everyone lies, and uses and manipulates his colleagues if he thinks he is right. Hugh Laurie shows us all these negative qualities but somehow makes us care deeply about this flawed human being and want to know more about him.

All in all, this is a remarkable show.

Patrick Stuart is indisputably a great actor, complemented by an excellent cast of other fine actors. This is a warm, humanized, three-dimensional portrait of Ebenezer Scrooge as a whole man. We can believe that a neglected, hurt child could grow up to become a hesitant lover and finally an embittered miser. Stuart's portrayal of Scrooge's growing regret for his life's missed opportunities is wonderfully done, and the final redemption scene is more than satisfying. This is a delightful Christmas offering.

This is a delightful film. It's beautifully written and wonderfully acted, and directed with such a sure touch that the viewer doesn't notice the direction. Gwyneth Paltrow is particularly good, but the whole cast is very special. It's funny, romantic, and charming -- it's a shame that it's not in wider release.