Me looking at The Sound of Music immediately after watching The King and I: "Perhaps I judged you too harshly..."
I guess you can cut this film a little slack for coming up on being 70(!) years old, but I don't want to cut it too much slack, because plenty of musicals from the 1950s and 1960s still hold up better than this one. It's a musical that feels like it's sort of about serious things, and includes them in the story... albeit without commenting on them too much. But it's not to the point where it's necessarily a comedy or a breezy/light-hearted musical, either. Tonally, it's weird.
Beyond that, the story/characters aren't hugely interesting, but I think the lead actors here all do a good job, considering they didn't have the greatest material to work with. Some of the songs are pretty good (most of them in the first half, as is often the case with musicals, it seems), and the production design/costumes/dances are all solid, too. Yet it is boring at times, and it feels more than a little messy, so when it comes to The King and I, at best, I feel conflicted.
I guess you can cut this film a little slack for coming up on being 70(!) years old, but I don't want to cut it too much slack, because plenty of musicals from the 1950s and 1960s still hold up better than this one. It's a musical that feels like it's sort of about serious things, and includes them in the story... albeit without commenting on them too much. But it's not to the point where it's necessarily a comedy or a breezy/light-hearted musical, either. Tonally, it's weird.
Beyond that, the story/characters aren't hugely interesting, but I think the lead actors here all do a good job, considering they didn't have the greatest material to work with. Some of the songs are pretty good (most of them in the first half, as is often the case with musicals, it seems), and the production design/costumes/dances are all solid, too. Yet it is boring at times, and it feels more than a little messy, so when it comes to The King and I, at best, I feel conflicted.