Brigadoon

Brigadoon Wri: Alan Jay Lerner; Dir: Vincente Minnelli Date: 1954   —   DVD product page Rating:

Ok, so I'm not really one for musicals, but I do like older movies, and the description of the story of Brigadoon was interesting to me so I had some high hopes for it. I was disappointed a little, but overall it's a good movie.

The first thing I noticed that set me off and started to lose me were the funny argyle tights. We're talkin' spandex here. Argyle. I'm pretty sure that's not Scottish dress of any time period, let alone 1748 or whenever they're supposed to be from. Why don't they all just wear kilts? Most of them did - it was only a few that wore the tights, and it's not like they were all doing splits and flying through the air ballet style or anything. It was mostly just frolicking around. The argyle tights really lost me.

The first 30 seconds are a great opener to the movie. The sing-song narration sets the tone for some mystical happenings, but then goes off-'kilt'er with a confusing song & dance piece that is supposed to establish setting. It does establish a setting, but the problem is we don't know where this setting is. It could be the North Pole for all we know. It's just confusing. This part should have either been the intro, or occurred after Tommy and Jeff agree they are lost and catch a glimpse of the village. Also two of the main characters are featured in this scene, but they aren't and haven't been introduced yet, so it's unclear why they are the focus and why they share a hostile look between them.

I was looking to use an adjectival form of the word animus in the previous sentence, but i don't think it exists. Bueller? 

Despite the confusing start, it's an enjoyable progression. The sets are very pretty in a Disney fairy tale kind of way, and it's crazy to think the entire thing is inside. It gets better as the movie progresses. The underlying premise is good, although a little bit too much of a heavy-handed Christian explanation of it for my tastes. I'll chalk it up to the 1950's though and ignore it. Again, the further the movie progresses, the better it gets. I could, however, do with all the song and dance pieces being cut in half. Because about that time in each of them, I was getting ready for the plot to move on, but they just kept on dancing.

The ending was good but left me wanting for knowledge of Jeff's situation. What happened to him? As far as we know he's just standing there at the end of the bridge in the mist. And in my mind, he's the one who needed Brigadoon the most. If it were me, I'd have him say, "Aw, what the heck!" and traipse across the bridge to find the rowdy shepherd girl. Would that really have been so hard to write in?

So, the scores... 

Objective 3/5 - It would be ranked a bit higher, but it has some mandatory deductions for poor structure and poorly explained plot. The important plot points are glossed over as if they didn't matter, and not in a mysterious guess why kind of way, but in a there's-some-really-heavy-shit-going-on-here,-but-lets-sing-a-happy-song-instead! kind of way.

Subective 3/5 - I wish some things were different, and if I liked the song and dance more, I'd probably give it 4 stars. But as it stands, I'll mark it up as an "I liked it." Despite the argyle tights, it does a very good job of transporting you to another place.