Oh, musical films. How crazy you can be.
Singing in the Rain is probably one of the best musical films I’ve seen, in no small part due to it’s wonderful self-awareness and willingness to make fun of it’s craft. It’s about a film within a film – the making of a musical film right at the time silent movies are becoming talking movies, and the desperate attempts of several silent actors to save their careers.
The acting is decent and the singing is alright, but what really sold me on this movie being decent is it’s self-awareness. The movie, and all the characters in it, seem to understand that they are actually IN a movie, and they act accordingly. The movie is totally willing to make fun of itself, and Hollywood, which is a refreshing change from the many, many movies that take themselves waaay too seriously.
However, the movie did fail to hold my attention a little bit. It might be just down to personal taste, but I don’t really like musical films that much. I would say Singing in the Rain is the best musical film I’ve seen, in that I actually enjoyed it once, but I’m not sure seeing it a second time would necessarily mean I would still enjoy it. That said, it’s funny in the right spots, the acting is solid, and it holds up as a great example of the musical genre of films.
Score: 3/5 (A 3 is a movie that is very deserving of it’s place on the AFI top 100 list. It kept me interested through the entire thing, and I thought it was a quality film. However, I probably wouldn’t watch it more than once, for one or more reasons (below-par acting/plot/dialogue, story being too simplistic or too difficult, movie being past it’s prime, etc.) That said, I recommend you go see it at least once.)
