Charade 4K 1963

I didn’t see any reason to be wildly enthusiastic about this movie. It’s a very run-of-the-mill film, and if it’s interesting at all, it’s only because of Audrey Hepburn’s presence in the lead role. I won’t venture to judge her acting skills, but she’s a pleasure to watch. The male roles left no impression whatsoever, and the love interest (the second lead) comes across as a complete miscast.

As for the plot, it lives up to the title perfectly. The filmmakers’ sole aim was clearly to give viewers a headache trying to figure out the whereabouts of the ill-fated money, while the question of “will they or won’t they get married?” was pushed far into the background. The attempt to blend genres—thriller, comedy, romance, and mystery—comes across as unconvincing. The romance feels like a parody, and the attempt at comedy through the “agent-spy-agent” refrain fails to impress; moreover, by the time it’s repeated yet again, it sounds rather tacky.

The film drags on too long, and in a situation where “the fire department is searching, the police are searching,” where everyone is running around in a frenzy, suspecting everyone and anyone, yet nothing becomes clear—it feels exhausting. Moreover, when it becomes clear in the final scenes that it turns out to be the heads of the financial departments at American embassies who are so brilliantly capable of conducting “operational-investigative” activities, it becomes awkward to be confronted with such blatant vulgarity. Obviously, the filmmakers got so carried away that their sense of proportion clearly deserted them.

Overall, however—and I’ll say it again—if the film is memorable for anything, it’s only for Audrey Hepburn’s presence; and for me personally, perhaps also because my review is more critical than all the others.