Rent Playtime (1967)

Must be me! - Playtime review by CB

Mmm.....was expecting the best of Tati based on critical reviews.

How disappointing, my yawns started 10 minutes in, then sleep came and I returned the dvd.

Was waiting for some Action, but didn’t get any that satisfied me. 

Inexplicably overrated 'classic' - Playtime review by CP Customer

High-minded critics are wont to describe Jacques Tati's 'Play Time' as a surreal and penetrating satirical vision of the modern world; in fact it's insufferably smug, excruciatingly dull and painfully, fatally unfunny. Tati is often compared to earlier giants of silent comedy like Chaplin and Keaton, but on this evidence he has precious little of Chaplin's empathy and grace and even less of Keaton's frenetic physical dexterity and dynamism. In fairness, it is visually quite interesting, but its intentionally drab colour palette and boxy concrete office and apartment blocks are actually nowhere near as imaginative or as interesting as the kind of high modernism Tati evidently thinks he is poking fun at.

It's tempting to surmise that this is a once great film of its particular time that simply hasn't aged well, but actually its critical reputation has only grown over the years - on its release, audiences reportedly found it unoriginal and trite. They were right and subsequent generations of critics are most definitely wrong.