Topsy-Turvy

Unwatchable twaddle about Gilbert and Sullivan. Self indulgent and boring. I cannot believe that Mike Leigh was the director. I hated it with a passion . Torture..

has the funnist and rudest sex scene in a brothel i've ever seen and set to music too. loved it loved it

I'd assumed (which shows the dangers of assuming!) that this would cover some years of the Gilbert & Sullivan story and the infamous feud between the two men that ended up in court. But it actually snapshots just one year: from the production of Princess Ida to the opening night of The Mikado. It spends a lot of time (too much? the movie is a full two and a half hours long) on rehearsals for specific scenes from The Mikado. Fortunately that happens to be the G&S operetta I know best, so I found this fascinating; but anyone who doesn't know The Mikado well could be totally baffled by the plot. There are sub-plots about both Gilbert's and Sullivan's private lives, as well as some of the cast, which makes the film a bit of a mishmash. But for me, very interesting and nostalgic.

Film reflects on the creative process, as such, especially the frequent problems posed by running out of ideas when bills are regular but inspiration is not. The solution found here is a common one in Western culture - borrow ideas from other cultures.

Gilbert & Sullivan's Mikado is here created in an effort to solve the problem of the inability to ring the changes from stale plots and implausible stories that the successful duo had fallen into. This is amusing enough but contains few real insights into creativity, in general, nor about Gilbert & Sullivan, in particular. This could have been a delightful study in contrasts between the sensual Sullivan and the emotionally-repressed Gilbert, but offers neither explanation as to why they became the way they were nor as to why two such opposites should attract. This aspect of the movie makes it a kind of comic opera itself, with only hints at the darkness of drug addiction, narcissism, solipsism and all-round luvviness. Much of the humor comes from the cattiness of the overgrown actors (kids, really) presented here as well as the undeniably-fine popular music and song given as much prominence as the characterization.

It is not Cabaret or Amadeus - because it deals with somewhat trivial issues - but it is fun and rather beautiful to look at. And the performances from Jim BROADBENT and Alan CORDUNER are as excellent as those of the rest of the cast. The acting here is, in fact, rather odd. The attempt is made to mimic bad acting because of the excessive vanity of so many of the performers. But, fortunately, since vanity is a theme here, this never tips over into the appearance of bad acting.

I wanted to like this but it's as dull as ditchwater. The characters are completely affected and it comes across as directorial self-indulgence.