Irma la Douce

Jack Lemon. What a natural. What an actor. Shirley MacLaine also very good. This film with all its convoluted twists and turns and knots and what not, has a beautiful love story at the center of it. It appears to be incredibly sweet, and touching, all the while supplying good comic relief, in particular with that bartender character and his insane anecdotes where he's been in every corner of the world and back, very good stuff - and the film does really well at developing lots of content in a plot that is fairly simple...

but - and there's a big but (and I cannot lie) - it lingers for too long to a point where the viewer is ready to indulge and buy into the film's surrealistic plot for a while... but then it exaggerates just too much and a growing sense of silliness starts spilling out of it. In that, it's also too long: nearly two hours and thirty minutes, for such a cute, light story there's no reason whatsoever for that length.

Could've been better as a shorter, more focused, less leaky story.

Good stuff still. 7/10.