London. Alfie is a dashing womanizer who exchanges women like socks, refusing to commit to anyone of them. However, one day, his current girlfriend, Gilda gets pregnant. Alfie recommends she has an abortion, but she decides to give birth to the baby. Alfie is uninterested in the kid, so Gilda breaks up and starts a relationship with Humphrey, a bus conductor. Alfie continues to have sex with many women: Ruby, an American; Annie, who came to London to start a new life; Siddie... When he lands in bed with Lily, the wife of one of his friends, Harry, she gets pregnant. Alfie arranges for an abortion, but later regrets it. He tries to build up a lasting relationship with Ruby, but finds out she found a younger lover. Alfie ends up alone on a bridge.
Many movies are a product of their time, and "Alfie" is a commentary on the 'swinging sixties', when for the first time a whole new generation emerged, a generation which was uninterested in a lasting relationship or building a family, and was only interested in short-term hedonism and polygamy. Alfie, played brilliantly by competent Michael Caine, becomes a symbol-character, a person who dumps women as soon as he gets bored of them, but ends up alone in the finale, faced with the prospect that "his time is up" when he gets older, embodied in the allegorical image of him walking with a stray dog, since both of them are like aimless, wondering ships unconnected to anybody. "Alfie" has a great, aesthetically inventive opening act: Alfie exits a car and looks directly into the camera, addressing the audience, while the titles "Alfie" show up on the screen. Alfie then goes: "My name is...", but is interrupted when his lover calls him from inside the car: "Alfie!" While this "breaking the fourth wall", in which Alfie directly talks to the audience, is an amusing trick, the film starts to lose its inspiration and wit after some 30 minutes, stagnating until it settles for a good, albeit standard quality until the end of the film. A few comical or snappy moments still show up, though intermittently, such as the one where Alfie, holding a cigarette, is giving a long kiss to his new girlfriend in his car, but as a new car passes by and illuminates them, Alfie ends the kiss and puffs out smoke he kept in his mouth the whole time. Except for the dark subplot involving abortion, "Alfie" refuses to become preachy or force any moral message, yet is a comical contemplation about where a lack of human connection and lost opportunities can lead.
Grade:++
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