Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
Hollywood, 1927: As silent movie star George Valentin wonders if the arrival of talking pictures will cause him to fade into oblivion, he sparks with Peppy Miller, a young dancer set for a big break.
The Artist is a genuinely singular achievement — a black-and-white silent film made in 2011, executed with real craft and affection for the form rather than as mere gimmick. Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo deliver expressive, physically committed performances that would impress even by the standards of the era they're evoking, earning a strong acting mark. Cinematography is lush and period-perfect, with Guillaume Schiffman's photography feeling authentically classical while remaining visually inventive. Novelty is high because the film's conception — a modern studio-era silent film, not a pastiche but a genuine attempt at the form — is wholly distinctive; there's simply nothing else quite like it in contemporary cinema. The plot, however, is a fairly conventional rise-and-fall-and-redemption arc rooted in well-worn Hollywood mythology, limiting its score despite being competently handled. The ending is charming and crowd-pleasing but leans into sentiment rather than earning its resolution with full dramatic weight, keeping it from the top mark.