New York, early 20th century. Fanny Brice (born 1891), a young Jewish woman, is trying to make it on the stage, but the producers do not like her. When she gets a chance to perform among other girls on roller skates in a play, the audience loves her humor. Fanny catches the attention of producer Ziegfeld and becomes a star in his plays, while she also falls in love with Nick Arnstein, a poker gambler, but he is often away. After a lot of back and forth, Fanny and Nick are married and get a baby. But while Fanny becomes a bigger star in show business, Nick gets into financial troubles and succumbs to a phony bond deal. His jail sentence marks the end of their relationship.
From today's perspective, it seems strange that the producers originally intended someone else to play the leading role in "Funny Girl", since the casting of Barbra Streisand is simply perfect. This biopic about Fanny Brice is an example where one character, the main protagonist, is the entire film, and Streisand takes this burden and rises to the occasion by performing a whole plethora of emotions, from sadness, tragedy, romance up to sheer comedy, since she is not afraid of being sometimes completely silly. The 10 musical sequences are redundant are could have been cut (the low point is when Omar Sharif sings in one of them); the overlong running time of 150 minutes sometimes drags whereas the second half turns more towards typical melodrama, demonstrating that the director William Wyler was not always inspired in this edition. Yet Streisand is such a highlight, being both genuinely fragile and winningly funny at the same time, that she gives "Funny Girl" a specific comic taste, sometimes with pure stylistic moves. Already the opening act gives her character sympathy: Fanny is rehearsing on stage with other girls, until the boss, Mr. Keeney, interrupts them and yells: "Hey, you with the skinny legs!" Upon hearing that, the oblivious Fanny looks around at the legs of other girls, hoping he didn't mean her, but he did: "Yes, you, with the bloomers!"
Fanny's first break on stage, where she played a part even though she could not roller skate, was a surprise hit with the audience, and this gives her some credit with Keeney, who adamantly refused to have her in his show. Later on stage, when they talk about him hiring her, he says he will "think about it", turns around — while Fanny makes an "angry claw" gesture with her hand behind his back. These kind of little details and bits that Streisand does give her character wit and energy. Fanny is such a fascinating character, not only because of her weird "comic outbursts" (one exchange between Nick, whom she secretly loves, and herself is insane: "I'm from Kentucky. I breed horses." - "Can't they do it themselves?!") but also because of her wild personality that was difficult to restrain for a performance. One sequence in particular has a great payoff: she refuses to sing the final song "His Love Makes Me Beautiful" on the stage, fearing it is corny and unnecessarily self-congratulatory for her not so typical physical looks, but Mr. Ziegfeld insists that she must do it. Fanny reluctantly agrees — but then performs the song wearing a giant pillow under her wedding dress, as if she is pregnant, turning this romantic song into a pure comedy that has the audience laughing until the roof, much to Ziegfeld's shock. As with many such biopics, this one is also a secret story of "rise and fall" of an individual, with sometimes rather underdeveloped plot points, yet it is a rare example of a star being far better and more appealing to look at than the sole film itself.
Grade:++
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