When I saw the title for the 1963 Oscar winner was “Tom Jones,” I’ll admit I was a little confused. My only exposure to Tom Jones is the singer and I thought that this movie would be too early to be about his career. With the previous winner having been “Lawrence of Arabia” I was hyped to watch this movie, I expected this movie to match that one. Unfortunately, I was wrong to get excited.
“Tom Jones” tells the tale of an Englishman named Tom Jones. He is born a bastard and lives his life being a sex object to other women but pining after the one woman he wants and cannot have. Soon villains enter the picture and force him to leave his home. After a series of adventures he eventually ends up being hanged but before he can die it is revealed that he is actually the son of a squire. He ends up being pardoned and getting the girl that he wants. In reality this plot is almost like a bad romantic comedy.
From an acting standpoint there wasn’t anything that I found to noteworthy. The acting wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t great either. I found none of the performances to really stand out. It is from the directing standpoint that the film has made its name and is most likely the reason it was able to walk away with an Oscar. Several techniques of breaking the fourth wall were peppered in throughout the movie, in addition to an interesting scene featuring two of the characters eating dinner where the audience can almost see the conversation that is happening without words. In addition the movie opens as if it were a silent movie. However, as back then this may have seemed original, today all of these together feel like just a bunch of gimmicks strung together with a weak plot.
I don’t think this movie would do well today. At best it could hope to be buried in January releases were the studios put their films they don’t think would do well. It definitely doesn’t live up to high Oscar standards that I am accustomed to. It gets 1 out of 5 stars.
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