Funny Face

Fashion magazine Quality is looking for a girl who can represent everything it stands for. Photographer Dick Avery (Astaire) thinks he has found her on a location photo shoot in a bookstore. So store clerk Jo Stockton (Hepburn) becomes the 'Quality woman' and is whisked off to Paris to be a model. Unfortunately, while in Paris, she's more interested in hearing philosophers speak and in her burgeoning romance with Avery than in being a clothes horse.

Funny Face is a film unmistakably of its time and this is both a good and a bad thing. The satire of the then trendy philosophy (though I'm sure 'empathicalism' is made up) is often silly and wearing and takes away from the charm of the rest of the film much of the time but this is the only big problem with Funny Face and the philosophy is hardly the focus of the film

As a musical it's a bit of a mixed bag, with a few weak numbers like the opener 'Think Pink' but these pale in significance in comparison to the stronger songs like Hepburn's solo 'How Long Has This Been Going On?', the title number '(I Love Your) Funny Face', which is fantastically designed and lit with the red bulb in a darkroom by Donen. The standouts, though, are the wonderful 'Bonjour Paris' which cuts between Hepburn, Astaire and Thompson at various locations in Paris, often using split screen sequences of the three of them doing the same dance steps in perfect sync and 'On How To Be Charming' (As if Hepburn ever needed tips on this) which does exactly what it says on the tin.

The dancing is the strongest suit of the film. While Astaire (at 58!!) is still moving with all the grace he had in his younger days and has several amazing dance sequences it is Hepburn's lithe, sexy Basal Metabolism dance that makes the whole film worth watching.

Funny Face is, at it's heart, fluff and this means that there are a lot of implausibilities you have to reconcile to enjoy it. Hepburn and Astaire look odd as a romantic couple but their dance sequences are beautiful and do help you to buy the relationship somewhat. The other problem is that Hepburn isn't meant to be beautiful in the first half of the film which, frankly, is ridiculous as, if anything, she looks better with the minimal make up of her bookish character than she does painted up as a model (though the sequence in which Astaire is taking pictures of her around Paris has several moments where she's just jaw droppingly goregous.)

Funny Face isn't perfect, it's silly fluff but it's done with real style and it's never less than entertaining and can certainly be recommended.