{"id":17877,"date":"2012-02-03T11:55:49","date_gmt":"2012-02-03T19:55:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=17877"},"modified":"2012-02-03T13:56:28","modified_gmt":"2012-02-03T21:56:28","slug":"barrymore-erik-canuel-2011-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=17877","title":{"rendered":"Barrymore (Erik Canuel, 2011): CANADA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0 John Barrymore was a famous stage and screen\u00a0thespian, whose family name is synonymous with American theatre.<\/p>\n

Barrymore<\/em> began as a one-man act, stage production in Canada, it moved to Broadway in 1997 and was\u00a0performed by Christopher Plummer, who won a Tony Award\u00a0for his fine performance.\u00a0 In 2011 Erik Canuel filmed the production before a live audience in Canada.<\/p>\n

Barrymore<\/a>\u00a0<\/em> takes place in the 1940’s under\u00a0the guise that John Barrymore (Christopher Plummer), now toward the end of his life, is\u00a0trying to revive his stage career –\u00a0which began\u00a0early in the 1900’s, playing diverse characters from silly to the sublime, including Hamlet<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Barrymore has had a successful movie career, beginning with silents due to\u00a0his devilish good looks, and also in\u00a0talkies\u00a0due to\u00a0his\u00a0great vocal austerity.\u00a0 A great affection for “his baby” (alcohol) knows no bounds, as he wheels out a small cart\u00a0of liquor on to the stage and prepares to tell the audience a tale of his past.<\/p>\n

In what he refers to as\u00a0a “backer’s audition,” and\u00a0amongst thunderous applause, Barrymore moves gracefully across the stage hanging his hat, pouring a drink, and chuckling to himself\u00a0as his mind drifts to happier times, before noticing that he is alone with a vacant audience.<\/p>\n

Frank (John Plumpis) who is Barrymore’s reader, feeds him lines, off stage left, and\u00a0the nagging voice abruptly brings Barrymore back to the present and reality.<\/p>\n

Back and forth it goes, as Frank throws Barrymore\u00a0a line, whereby he recites it\u00a0with perfect elocution and then drifts off into yet another humorous anecdote about an ex-lover or one of his siblings, while staying completely in character, thus\u00a0causing\u00a0incessant frustration in Frank, until the two end up bickering like an old married couple.<\/p>\n

Known for his witticisms, which is evident in films such as Dinner at Eight<\/em> (1933) and Twentieth Century<\/em> (1934), Plummer adeptly\u00a0executes the Barrymore persona with such exacting precision, that eerily you forget it’s Christopher Plummer.\u00a0 And what is even more impressive is his crusty impersonation of brother Lionel.<\/p>\n

Humorous throughout, with a touch of melancholia –\u00a0observing that much of his talent was wasted on alcohol, Erik Canuel’s production is flawless.\u00a0 The film opens as a theater production but suddenly the stage transforms into a screen and the film to black and white, giving the film audience the sensation of stepping back in time and into Barrymore’s life.<\/p>\n

Christopher Plummer ought to have been nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for this scintillating performance.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy.\u00a0 Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. \u00a0 John Barrymore was a famous stage and screen\u00a0thespian, whose family name is synonymous with American theatre. Barrymore began as a one-man act, stage production in Canada, it moved to Broadway in 1997 and was\u00a0performed by Christopher Plummer, who won a Tony Award\u00a0for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,181],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-santa-barbara-film-festival-2012"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17877\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}