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Plot Summary
Academy Award-winner Christopher Plummer reprises his Tony Award-winning performance as iconic stage and screen idol John Barrymore in this bold and brilliant tour-de-force film. At the height of his remarkable career, John Barrymore was the most celebrated entertainer of his generation. The reigning king of both Broadway and Hollywood, his decline and fall from grace was the tragic result of a self-destructive spiral into vice and excess. And now, with his career in tatters, he makes one final attempt to reclaim his former glory on the stage in this powerful, heartbreaking, humorous and compassionate portrait of a tortured soul and living legend.
Credits
Director
Screenwriters
Rotten Tomatoes Movie Reviews
TOMATOMETER
71%- Reviews Counted: 24
- Fresh: 17
- Rotten: 7
- Average Rating: 6.7/10
Top Critics' Reviews
Fresh: Mr. Plummer stumbles beautifully, poignantly and often, leering and searching through a haze of memory or, with concern edged with panic, calling for "a line, a line" much as Richard III calls for a horse.
Fresh: Plummer is marvelous, flitting between reminiscence and Shakespearean recitation as a gifted artist aware of his own wretchedness.
Fresh: Think of it as one great performer saluting another.
Rotten: The material itself has a formulaic solo-bioplay rhythm neither performer nor director can fully elude.
Customer Reviews
Esoteric
If you appreciate long rambling monologues with an anticipation that something is actually going to happen in this movie, you might like it. Admittedly, Christopher Plummer, a most appealing actor, delivers within the limitations of the screen play, but it is a boring movie, with only the hint of biography keeping your attention. I fast-forwarded but that didn't work either. In the end I fast forwarded to the end and don't feel I missed anything. One for the purists only. Two stars for the acting only.
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