Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Barbara White is an Irish colleen who winds up being the entire staff in a large Liverpool household. She is lonely and unhappy. Greengrocer Marjorie Rhodes tells her a cock-and-bull story of a Tom Brown who loves her, but is in hospital. Meanwhile, Robert Beatty is a merchant mariner who has lost his papers, but has picked up Brown's papers and is in hospital after a brawl. When Miss White goes to the hospital, she finds him and they fall in love. There are an enormous number of subplots and complications, including crooks who want Beatty to help them steal landed goods, and illustrative montage sequences that reference Cinderella. The result is a romantic comedy that stretches for more than an hour and a half and makes one yearn for some sort of resolution, good, bad or indifferent. Miss Rhodes' stage Oirish accent and circuitous metaphors don't help, either. It's a pity, because the leads are very charming and have real chemistry with each other, but this one goes on for far too long.