Classic Movie Review: Roman Holiday
By Josh Spiegel
December 27, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Roman Holiday was nominated for ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and Hepburn won for her performance in the film. Looking back at the film over 55 years since its release, I was genuinely surprised for almost the entire movie. Roman Holiday, for about 90% of its running time, seems like a very enjoyable and fun movie, but nothing that, if made today, people would go crazy about. Maybe if this was the first film to introduce the world to Carey Mulligan, we’d have gone nuts about it. But I was shocked. What about Roman Holiday defined it as an Oscar contender, aside from starring Gregory Peck, a future winner for his role in To Kill A Mockingbird? What frustrated me while I watched Roman Holiday was that it was cute, kind of charming, well-directed, and so on, but it wasn’t something I’d remember in a week.
If you’ve seen the movie, you know where I’m going with this. If you haven’t seen the film, I won’t exactly spoil the ending of the film, but I will say that the final scene packs a surprisingly emotional punch, though you can probably chalk that up to Peck and Hepburn being so charismatic. Frankly, the end of the film is so good that it makes the rest extremely disappointing. The plot is paper-thin: a princess from a fictional country is tired of not having a life, so she escapes while visiting Rome and is squired around the place by an American journalist who’s in town to cover the story of the visiting royalty. Who guesses that they fall in love with each other? You all win! The pleasures of Roman Holiday aren’t in the twists and turns of the plot, but in watching two very charming people play off one another.
Of course, when Roman Holiday came out, the studio only knew that Peck would do fine in the role. Peck had been performing in popular films including Gentlemen’s Agreement, for a few years, but Hepburn was a newcomer. The film’s director, William Wyler, found that Hepburn possessed the right innocent yet sweet qualities of Princess Ann, specifically when she wasn’t aware that she was being filmed for her screen test. Of course, Hepburn would go on to be one of the most iconic movie stars, and you can see why in Roman Holiday. The story seems a bit rote, but there’s real fun to be had in watching an actress being introduced to the world of Hollywood in the same way that Princess Ann is introduced to the real world during her sojourn in Rome.
Peck, as a rascally American writer, embodies a slightly more adult character, so the romance that he and the childlike Hepburn have as Joe and “Anya,” the transparent false identity Princess Ann attempts to create for herself, seems a bit staid. Peck always exuded a very notable maturity as a performer; it’s why he is so ideal to play Atticus Finch. That doesn’t make him as easy an actor to play Joe, someone who’s clearly meant to be a bit of a scamp - we first see him trying to get out of a deadline he’s missed - but who’s got enough integrity to do the right thing. The latter, Peck can do without any hesitation. With the rare exception of a running gag in the second half of the film where Joe tries to shut up his photographer friend who’s unaware that he’s talking out of turn, Peck doesn’t play a scamp very well.
That said, his time onscreen with Hepburn, either confined to his tiny apartment or to various sites around Rome, is a lot of fun to watch. There’s never a moment where you believe that these two aren’t movie stars having some good time in a beautiful place like Rome, but being in their company is still more enjoyable than the alternative. This is the inherent problem with the final scene, which comes after Joe and Princess Ann have pretty much declared their love for each other. As it always goes in these movies, the love isn’t as real as it could have been, but since the performers are who they are, we’re willing to go along with the artifice. It’s also worth praising the movie for not extending the ending to let Princess Ann become angry that Joe was really, at first, using her for a big story.
Nowadays, this movie would feature a lengthy third-act scene where Princess Ann finds out, Joe tries to apologize and explain that now he really loves her for who she is, but she needs to do some soul-searching before she can accept his love. Roman Holiday does not do that; in its place, we have the final scene, where Princess Ann is once again with her royal family and addressing the press in her first press conference in Italy. No one really knows what has happened to Ann while she was gone, except for herself, Joe, and his photographer pal. These days, the movie would end as happy as possible, with Ann declaring her love publicly and running away with Joe. Suffice to say, that is not how this movie ends. There’s a very clear, bittersweet and poignant feeling to the final few minutes.
So what’s wrong with this? The ending doesn’t follow with what precedes it. I believe that ending, because of Hepburn and Peck. But the lead-up should have been more believable. Had I felt that these two were genuinely in love with each other, as opposed to just going through the motions to get to the ending, this would be a truly sad and wistful finale to a great movie. As it stands, Roman Holiday has a great ending that it doesn’t deserve. The concept is great, the actors are fine, and Audrey Hepburn has a perfect start to her career, but Roman Holiday should have soared, instead of puttering around for 90 minutes before socking you in the stomach. Bring the hankies for the ending, but keep yourself awake beforehand.