It is difficult to know what to do with a film like Gigi. On one hand, it is impeccably made. The sets and the costumes are all absolutely gorgeous. The cinematography is full of bright, beautiful primary colors that jump right off the screen. There is a room decorated almost solely in red that will make your eyes pop right out of their sockets. The acting is universally great, and the direction from Vincente Minnelli is magnificent. It won all kinds of awards including nine Oscars.
Buy Gigi Blu-raySo after all of that, why am I saying it is difficult to know what to do with it? Let’s begin with one of the opening songs, “Thank Heaven for Little Girls.” It is sung by Maurice Chevalier, who was pushing 70 at the time, and contains lyrics that speak of girls of “five, six, or seven” who “get bigger every day” and “grow up in the most delightful way.” The plot involves a middle-aged man essentially courting a teenager to be his courtesan, causing at least one Letterboxd reviewer to dub this a groomer musical.
That’s not entirely fair. His care for her springs from a true friendship and deep feelings. But he does realize it through a song in which he sings bout this little girl whom he’s known for years has blossomed, that is to say physically matured. So, yeah, this is a difficult film to review.
Set in 1900 Paris, Gigi (Leslie Caron) is poor but precocious and carefree. She’s being raised by her grandmother (Hermione Gingold) who regularly sends her to her great-aunt’s house to be trained as a lady in hopes she can become a kept mistress of some older rich man (marriage for love seems out of the question given her status and relative poverty).
Gaston Lachaille (Louis Jourdan) is an extremely wealthy playboy who has become bored with life. He enjoys visiting Gigi because she is completely herself, unlike all the other women he spends time with who play act the part society has created for them. Then one day he takes her to the beach, realizes she’s no longer the little girl he’s known for so many years but a young woman, and falls in love.
To be fair, for the most part the film treats this material reasonably well. There’s that opening song (which inexplicably closes the whole thing out as a reprise) and another one where Gaston is awakened to her physical maturing, but mostly it keeps things light and comedic. And again, the film won lots of awards in 1958, so presumably most people were not bothered by this aspect of the plot. As the song says, the times, they do change. It is also based on an even older novel which in turn was based on a real-life person.
When watching old movies, one often has to overlook certain elements that are now considered dated or out of touch. There is quite a lot to overlook in this film, but if you are able to do that, there is a lot to enjoy as well. It is a classic Hollywood musical made by one of the all-time, classic Hollywood musical directors. The songs (when they aren’t explicitly calling attention to the grosser elements of the plot) are really quite wonderful, and the production values across the board are tremendous.
This appears to be a re-release of a 2009 release of the film, thus I do not believe it is a new transfer and all of the extras are old. Still the transfer is still a good one (those colors really do pop) and the extras are enjoyable. They include an audio commentary, a 30-minute retrospective documentary plus a Tom & Jerry cartoon, an odd little propaganda short, and a French adaptation of the same material from 1949.
