For July, I decided on a month of musicals and what better way to follow up Pride Month than with a Pride icon! Funny Girl is a movie made in the late 60s starring Barbra Streisand. I don't know much about the specifics of the storyline, but I know it's an iconic film that people refer to a lot. I'm also willing to bet that there will be things that I see in this film that shows how often the film is referenced and I never even knew it was a reference. This film is filled with great musical numbers and I'm pretty sure there will be dancing. Since I'm going in knowing so little of this film, I may as well get started so I can see what I've been missing out on.
Fanny Brice is a woman of many talents. She's quick witted, funny and charming. She steps into this movie in perfectly poised grace and elegance, then shows her divergence from the typical "glam girl" by shooting finger guns at an absent audience in the theater. The opening scene lets you know that she's built her way to the top and now she's coming home to her roots, where it all started, but she's not your typical Hollywood "it" girl. The movie follows her life, from her first first entertainment job through her rise in the industry. She falls in love, builds a family and grows her career. Not all good things last, though. Her paradise crumbles from underneath her and there was nothing she could do to change it. This woman is resilient, though, so you know she'll land on her feet again.
Fanny begins as a young girl trying to get a big break, but finds out that she stands out instead of fits in as a chorus girl. This allows her to find her way as a solo performer on stage, setting up the career she's always dreamed of. She's driven to perform and she shows great determination even when people are telling her no and that she doesn't have the right look for the stage. Her first big show, she shows that she's an amazing comedic presence on stage. Her stint as a chorus girl ends quickly as she becomes a solo performer for a small stage for the next six months. At this point, Fanny is invited to join the Ziegfeld Follies and be a part of one of the biggest shows around. This is her dream come true. She gets some comments from the people around her and that's when I realized that she uses her persona of "funny girl" as her armor to fight against the world that only wants to see typical beauty. She sees herself as atypical and I don't know if she even recognizes her own beauty, but she uses humor to keep the hurt of others' words from getting too painful. When she's given her first performance in the Follies, she changes up the number a bit. She didn't feel comfortable singing the words as they describe the most beautiful bride in the world since she didn't feel they fit with her image. She used humor to twist the meaning a bit, and with the simple placement of a single pillow, she created her own joke out of the words before the audience could laugh at her for not living up to the standard that was being placed before her. Although her boss, Ziegfeld himself, wasn't amused by her joke, the audience loved it and he decided to keep her version in the show. After the performance, a man shows up at her door. A man she's only met once before, but was really hoping she would see again. Nick Arnstein, played by Omar Sharif, is Fanny's dream guy. A guy that blows through her life a few times before he finally decides to settle down with her.
Fanny spends a long night with him hanging out with the neighborhood gang after her first show and the two seem to be building a strong, budding relationship. By the end of the night, though, Nick has to leave and go back to his unpredictable life. Fanny is left feeling hopeful that they have something, but after another year goes by and she doesn't see him, she gets a bit jaded. She runs into him again and he convinces her to join him for dinner. Dinner becomes a day together, and winds up ending with him needing to leave her again. The only difference this time is that he tells Fanny that he is in love with her. Later, when she's back at the train station waiting to go to the next city for the next show, she gets a delivery of flowers from Nick and a card repeating that he loves her. She decides to end her stint of the tour and follow after him. I was worried that he wouldn't be glad to see her, but he was delighted to see her. I thought it was kind of funny when the staff member called him Mr. Brice, thinking that she got her last name from him. I actually had a similar moment and it cracked me up, too. I went to a friend's wedding and her mother made up the place cards for each seat. She assumed that my partner and I were married, so gave him my last name. It cracked us both up and we kept the card as a memento. The two wind up getting married after Nick wins a fortune in a card game. They move into their new home, start a family and Fanny is living her dream. She starts performing again and Nick goes off to strike it rich with oil, which turns out to be a bust.
Nick's success in life is driven by gambling. Whether that's playing cards, buying horses and racing them or trying to strike it rich with oil, everything he does is a risk. Unfortunately for Fanny, not all of his gambles pay off. When he loses the investment of land in Oklahoma, hoping for oil, he tries to get it back with gambling. Unfortunately, he gets distracted by gambling so much that he misses her premier night for her first show back. This is where I start to get disappointed in Nick. Her premier should have been most important to him, but he couldn't get his head out of his own problems, so he completely avoids it. If he had just gone to the premier, he wouldn't have lost as much money and maybe they wouldn't have started a downward descent from that point on. As the movie progresses, he gets more depressed about his situation and can't seem to break out of the mindset that he's lesser than because he's not the breadwinner in the house. I understand needing to pull your own weight and feel like an equal part in a relationship, but he seems to sink lower and lower in his darkness, not caring what it does to their relationship. It's a story seen too many times over throughout the decades. When a person has their place in this world disrupted and shaken, it's not an easy place to come back out of. If they don't know how to ask for help, or they have been told that they are lesser-than because they ask for it, then they sink lower and lower and find no way to dig themselves back out of it. I think it's worse for men than women because there's generations of conditioning that have taught men that they need to be the bread-winner, the financial supporter of the family and it can be a heavy burden to bear. Fanny tries to come up with a great solution to his problem, but she goes about it the wrong way. Instead of bringing up her idea and broaching the option of her floating him a loan until he can pay her back, she takes away his chance to even have an opinion on the subject before going to someone outside the family. This decision pushes Nick to make a drastic decision that winds up putting him in jail for 18 months. He gave up on their relationship because he felt unworthy of her. In the beginning, he felt she hung the moon, but the fact that he'd give up on them because he was intimidated that she was more successful than him is what disappointed me most. In fact, it slightly sickens me that he was able to cast her aside so easily. He sees her as a strong woman who doesn't need anyone because she has her own fortune, not even realizing that money isn't the only thing in this world that holds importance. His love made her happy and that was what mattered most to her and he couldn't see past his own issues to see that his decision took that away from her. His decision to give up and leave is what made him unworthy, not the loss of his money.
I enjoyed this movie, but it doesn't exactly leave you in a happy place. The music, the dance numbers and the general fun in the movie will stick with me, but this sadness I feel for the love lost will linger as well and it's not so funny now that the movie is over. This is not a "happily ever after" kind of movie, but it is one that stands the test of time, despite a few outdated mindsets throughout the movie. I can understand why it resonates with so many people and how it's stayed a movie that is mentioned still to this day. If you haven't seen it yourself, or would love to rewatch it, I found it here on Amazon Prime.
Since I'm a bit behind on getting this post up, thanks to my Disney vacation last week, this week will have two posts. Since I've finally wrapped this one up, I'll be watching Fiddler on the Roof tomorrow and will get the next post up before the weekend gets here. Stay tuned for more movies I've never seen!
For more movie love, check out my other blog, "You're Watching That Again?!"
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