Funny Girl Review

This review comes from my Letterboxd profile, where I review all of the movies I watch.

God, I can't tell if I'm being easy or hard on this movie. Okay, so, let's get the positives out of the way first. The music is pretty good and well-written, and the singing is all great. The cinematography and direction is solid. The story beats for a potential rise to fame are all there and are all intriguing. That being said, I have a huge problem with this movie, and it's the two leads. Barbara Streisand and Omar Sharif do a phenomenal job in this film as actors, they're not the issues I have. The character of Fanny Brice is just consistently unlikable to me. Look, I want to make my stance clear on this issue: A lot of people interpret this film as an inspirational piece that shows a woman overcoming oppression to become successful in something that she's passionate about. That's a fantastic message, and Brice is not unlikable to me because of that struggle. She's unlikeable to me because, throughout the film, she and her love interest Nicky are shown to be completely stuck-up attitude-ridden people who believe they are special and deserve success because wow, they're so incredible and they're not recognized for how incredible they are. Brice has an entire opening number that basically says "No one notices how talented I am, look how amazingly talented I am, no one notices my talent" and then complains about getting a job because she didn't have to suffer through it first. How in the world am I supposed to relate to this character?

I have a personal vendetta against people like this because I have had personal experiences with someone in the theater that thought they were so incredibly talented and that they were being treated unfairly after not getting the parts they wanted and that personally damaged and almost made me reconsider my love of theater because they would correct every word out of my mouth if it didn't align with what they believed was right. Fanny Brice in this movie reminds me of that person -- hell, that person even once sang a song from this show! Brice is an attitude-ridden woman who believes she should get her way because of how talented and funny she is and Nick is a man who believes that he should be able to gamble and do whatever the hell he wants and is just completely stuck up. There is a difference to me between a woman rising from obvious or even subtle oppression because she is passionate about her beliefs and a woman who finds her way into positions because she is determined to show how unearthly talented they are, and to me, Fanny is the later. I'm sorry, I do give this film a bit more credit considering it's a true story and maybe what this film was going for was an explanation of why these characters acted that way, but the angle they took this movie in felt like they were praising this woman for being so unnecessarily egotistical. It's okay to be proud of the things you've done, it's okay to feel accomplished in certain performances, but don't constantly brag about how amazing you think you are at singing or acting or dancing, just take the compliments, say you like to think of yourself or certain performances you've given as good, continue doing what you love, and move on.

Funny Girl has all of the barebones essentials of a great musical of overcoming oppression, but it takes the exact wrong angle with it because it takes a woman whose ego is over the roof and places her with a man whose ego is over the roof and tries to make both characters likable as if they're overcoming hardships. Sorry, I frankly don't buy it. I was even considering giving this movie two stars, but I'm willing to acknowledge that maybe I'm just missing something because apparently, people loved this movie. It was nominated for Best Picture and Streisand won for what is apparently her debut film performance (honestly, fair, because for a debut, woah), but god, I just don't see it. I think it did exactly the opposite of what its message tried to say, there are only a couple of memorable songs throughout here for me, and overall, I just didn't find a lot of it that funny, which is ironic considering the title. I don't know, I think it's good to at least see this movie once, and if you love it, great, keep loving it, I have no problems with that because I'm clearly the odd one out here. I've just personally had one too many experiences with a person much like the main character of this movie, and I can't stand it.

Letter Grade: C+