Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
A shy Greenwich Village book clerk is discovered by a fashion photographer and whisked off to Paris where she becomes a reluctant model.
Funny Face is a visually sumptuous Technicolor musical showcasing Audrey Hepburn and Fred Astaire, with Richard Avedon's influence lending the cinematography an exceptional, fashion-forward elegance that still stands out. The Paris locations and color photography are genuinely stunning. The plot, however, is fairly thin and formulaic even by musical standards — a Pygmalion-lite romance with a somewhat contrived intellectual subplot involving 'empathicalism.' The acting is charming rather than transformative; Astaire is graceful and Hepburn luminous, but neither is challenged dramatically. The ending resolves predictably and somewhat abruptly, feeling rushed and unearned given the philosophical tension the film sets up. Novelty sits at average for a studio musical of the era — stylish and distinctive in its fashion-world setting but not genre-redefining.