Rent Gigi (1958)

Thank Heaven for Little Red Flags - Gigi review by griggs

There’s something faintly maddening about being talked down to by a film in top hat and tails. Watching Gigi, you can see why it swept awards season. The opening narration plays like a lesson on love and Paris for people who’ve never met either, queer-coded asides and all. Maurice Chevalier drifts into his big number, twinkly as ever, though the lyrics now sit somewhere between dated and queasy.

Once the story settles, we’re watching a girl methodically groomed into a “proper” companion for Gaston. Her grandmother and aunt coach her in cigars, small talk and compliance, while Gaston drifts from mistress to mistress, sizing up alternatives and discreetly buying people out of their arrangements so affairs end on cue. Even suicide is treated as a lightly comic flourish rather than a cry of despair, which didn’t exactly warm me to the romance. The Belle Époque gloss is pretty, but the gender politics are a museum piece.

There’s MGM sheen, a couple of sturdy tunes and the odd flash of wit. Mostly, though, I felt like a guest at a lavish party, impressed by the budget but counting the minutes until I could sneak off to something stranger and less pleased with itself.