My Fair Lady

Originally published on social media on March 21st, 2022

Oscars week is officially here! To celebrate film history, I will be writing random reviews throughout the week about a film that won “Best Picture” in each decade. To keep things interesting, this will not be in chronological order.

Starting us off is the 1965 winner of the best picture Oscar. Here’s a little history about this iconic night: My Fair Lady was nominated for about every award you can imagine, and went home with 8 awards. Notably not best actress…Audrey Hepburn was not nominated. Whether she deserved that award or not is entirely up to you. Here’s the scandalous part. Julie Andrews originally played Eliza Dolittle on Broadway, but was not offered the role. Ironically, Julie Andrews won the best actress award in 1965. Best part of all, when she accepted the award, she thanked Jack Warner because without him, she wouldn’t have had the opportunity to play Mary Poppins. Jack Warner (a Warner bro) was who blocked her from playing Eliza Dolittle. In classic Julie fashion, she classily thanked him and did not harbor bitter feelings towards anyone including Audrey.

Historical context aside, let’s talk about “My Fair Lady”. The songs are catchy, the costumes are gorgeous, and there are some witty moments. This movie is a fun fairy tales that has been loved by many generations and has even served as a comfort movie. However, I have always felt that this film is overrated.

Here’s the thing: the songs are great, but the musical numbers go on too long. In fact, every time I watch this film, I always end up fast forwarding some portion of it. Is that true to the Broadway legacy? No, but this is a 2 hr 50 minute film… and that is WAY too long for a story as simple as this. I’ve also never been convinced that Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn have chemistry. Are they meant to? Yes and no, but when I read Pygmalion last summer, I sensed that there was always meant to be a little spark there. Other adaptions of this story have shown this including Pretty Women.

This movie has won many Oscars and remained a timeless classic, but that effect has not completely rubbed off on me.