Review of Funny Face, directed by Stanley Donen

For the longest time, I had never seen a movie with Audrey Hepburn in it. I mean it kind of makes sense, as my home base is Asian cinema, which means I had never bothered with the Western classic films until rather recently. Even when I was an undergrad minoring in film, I mainly took history, theory, and Asian cinema courses.

That said, I was finally forced to watch a Hepburn movie in undergrad for one class: Costume and Fashion History Through Film.

It was taught by the fantastic Raissa Bretana, and although we did not get the actual classroom experience because of COVID, I felt like I learned a lot in that class. It wasn’t really friendly to beginners in fashion history, though, as I found myself getting lower grades because the expectations were higher.

Funny Face was one of the movie we watched in that class and had to analyze. All in all, I remember being charmed by the movie unfolding in front of me on the screen, and it was remembering that charm years later that led me to pick the movie up once again today.

Anyways, I think I’m rambling already with this introduction. Let’s get into the review, shall we?

A bookstore clerk finds herself swept up in the world of fashion and romance with a photographer.

Set in the period in which this movie was released, we have a fictional magazine, Quality, looking for the next big thing. Its editor is Maggie Prescott, and she wants a new look that can emulate not only beauty, but intellectualism as well. Considering the stigma with fashion, that’s a tough order she’s asking for.

She collaborates with the photographer Dick Avery, and the two decide they need models who are not only good looking, but smart as well. They wander the streets of NYC in search of the perfect place, and stumble across a bookstore in the Village. They kind of just run in there and demand to use it, much to the shock of Jo, the clerk and assistant there.

Jo is quite shy, so when they start taking the pictures, she kind of just clings to the walls. She thinks the fashion industry is something that doesn’t really make sense, as she is exactly what they’re looking for when it comes to intellectualism. Maggie wants to use her in the pictures, but they end up locking her outside instead to prevent her from interrupting the process.

When they all leave after the photoshoot, the store is pretty much falling apart. Dick stays behind to help Jo clean up the mess, but then he ends up kissing her in the process. Jo tells him to leave after that, but then has a musical number where she feels the romance in that kiss. We also learn it’s her dream to study philosophy in Paris.

Dick goes back to the office and develops the pictures, realizing in the process that Jo is the perfect model. The publisher asks Jo to come in with books, but when she arrives, they beautify her with a makeover. She runs away and tries to hide, but ends up in Dick’s darkroom.

He mentions Paris to her, and she decides to model in an attempt to get to Paris and attend her philosophy lessons. The crew prepares to depart for Paris, shooting Jo around the most famous landmarks, and she falls in love with Dick somewhere along the way. She does meet the philosopher at a cafe, but Dick grabs her to attend a gala.

However, she gets into an argument with Dick there, humiliating her and pissing Maggie off. She goes to the philosopher again to chat with him, but then Maggie and Dick come and find her again. The philosopher tries to seduce her, and she smashes a vase on his head, and does her job at one last final show.

She ends up running off the runway in tears though, as she thinks Dick has left her. He didn’t get on his plane at the airport, and then he comes to the show and doesn’t find her. He deduces she’s at the chuch where he photographed her in a wedding dress, and she is indeed there. They have a little moment, and get together.

Overall Thoughts

This is such a 1950s movie. And when I say that, it could have been easily done without the musical bits and nothing would have really happened to it. I found those musical numbers to be cumbersome and distracting in the long run.

That said, I still think this movie is a lot of fun. Not a fan of how the female character is just an object of desire for the male characters, but I try to think critically and contextualize it within the period. Not a lot of female empowerment happening at all in the 1950s.

Go watch this one if you’re interested! It’s a classic in Hepburn’s filmography.

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