On the surface, The Artist might seem like a long-shot to pick up accolades as Hollywood's awards season looms. The film is silent. It's black and white. And it hails from France. Set in late-1920s Hollywood, the subtitled movie (watch trailer below) recounts the intertwined stories of a popular silent-film actor whose career collapses with the advent of sound, and a pretty young starlet whose career takes off along with the talkies. Yet despite The Artist's art-house trappings, critics are calling it an Oscar frontrunner with mass appeal. Really?
Yes. It's a superb film: The Artist is "one of the year's best," says Rex Reed at The New York Observer. It's sure to be a "smash hit." The performances are wonderfully charming, and "French writer-director Michel Hazanavicius (a name I cannot pronounce, much less spell) pulls out all the stops, embracing every trope of silent cinema with a crowd-pleasing resonance that is fresh and satisfying." Come awards season, don't be surprised if this foreign film takes home Hollywood's top trophies.
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