| Phantom
of the Opera
Gerard
Butler. Emmy Rossum. Drama/Musical.
Synopsis: A young singer is torn between the loyalty she
feels toward her
disfigured mentor and the love she feels for a dashing aristocrat,
whom
she’s admired her entire life.
Review: This film gets a really high B+, possibly because
I saw it the
same weekend in which I saw Million Dollar Baby, but more probably
because it's a musical.
I should
illuminate my musical bias right now - I'd rather have a soliloquy
than a sonnet; a drawn-out speech than a song. It's also why I'd
rather read Shakespeare than see (or hear) it.
The sets, however, are marvelous. And the idea of telling the major
story
and a minor one simultaneously (a la Titanic, with a past and present
storyline intertwined) is done well. I
must confess that I've never seen this as a stage presentation,
so I only marginally knew the storyline.
The film is entertaining and everyone does an excellent job, including
Minnie Driver (in a supporting role). She delivers such a good performance
that I wasn't sure it was her at first, which is what I consider
to be the sign of a fine actor - the character so consumes the actor
that you forget it's Minnie Driver (or Morgan Freeman or Willem
Dafoe) onscreen. Emmy Rossum is definitely a star on the rise.
OVERALL
GRADE: B+
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