The film version of My Fair Lady is a ceremonious bore, and the viewer has Cecil Beaton’s pompously sedentary, open-casket visual compositions to blame. (He was endowed — by the studio and Audrey Hepburn — with the power to basically call “cut” on George Cukor’s set.) Vogue magazine’s Hamish Bowles argues that, “after [Hepburn’s] Eliza learns how to speak properly, Cecil carries the rest of the film.” No wonder the otherwise unpresuming director Cukor hated working with Beaton. Then there was this little incident that took place in 1938 where Beaton “unconsciously” scribbled the word “kike” alongside an illustration he drew for an article on New York society. Not unlike her subject, director Lisa Immordino Vreeland tries her hand at creating an illusory world, quickly transitioning from Beaton’s pronounced anti-Semitism to lauding propaganda shots the photographer took during the war, shots that eventually allowed him to wheedle his way back into Hollywood’s good graces. With this in mind, it’s very difficult to do what the title asks. (2018) — Scott Marks
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