New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

What happens after the initial war of wills and words is how Farrell and Gilda deal with being in each other's life again. Farrell, knowing that Gilda has married Mundson, an older man, simply for his money, refuses Gilda any outside contact, especially with the many young men in and around Buenos Aires. Mundson vanishes around the second act of the film for various reasons, none of which serve any purpose aside from giving Farrell and Gilda a lot more face time, so we're given a sly if painful battle of the sexes, as Gilda knowingly goads Farrell by showing off the various himboes that she can bag around town, and Farrell becomes the least helpful wingman ever.

As unconventional it is and as unlikable as they may seem, this section of Gilda really worked a lot for me, mostly because it's so rare to see a movie that's meant to bring two lovestruck kids together spend so much time making them hate each other's guts. We're not talking about "hate," the kind of feeling that's really love with a bit of grouchiness; this is genuine hatred. Farrell doesn't so much hate Gilda as a person, he hates what she represents for his future and from his past. The same goes for Gilda, but this kind of hatred flies off the screen as Ford and Hayworth waste no time in making their feelings clear. When you think of some of the great film noirs, though, hate doesn't turn to pure love. Sometimes, hate turns into a grudging need for intimacy, sometimes it turns into heated passion, but never flat-out love.

Thus, we arrive at the third act of Gilda, where we're meant to buy Farrell and Gilda as star-crossed lovers, lovers who could get together if it weren't for his moral standards, his ill-fated ties to Mundson, and the ever-watchful eye of the police chief who knows that Mundson is up to something nefarious aside from fixing the roulette tables. Once they get together, it's appropriate for the way Hollywood movies worked in the older days: these two are the most attractive and charming people in the movie, so why shouldn't they get together? Ford and Hayworth certainly sell this part of the film as best they can, but the melancholy these two characters feel seems more realistic than the swooning vibes they give off in the final 30 minutes.

I mentioned Casablanca earlier, and in many ways, this movie wants very much to be an able successor of that film and, in doing so, fails miserably. Like the former film's protagonist, Johnny Farrell is an overseer of a boisterous club with customers of various backgrounds. Here, the second World War hovers like a specter, despite now having passed in the events of Gilda. Here, there are two lovers who once knew each other before meeting fatefully in the club. The main policeman in this film is corrupt, but not evil, and is more interested in helping out the protagonist than actually upholding the law. It's the ending, though, where Gilda and Casablanca diverge. The older film, of course, ends bittersweet, with those two lovers not getting together for the greater good. Gilda, however, ends with Johnny and Gilda getting together in one of the least convincing happy endings in movie history.

Continued:       1       2       3