CarolineFR69

I tend not to understand the whole cult around Audrey Hepburn. I never thought she was a great actress, and she has the same acting in all the movies. You will always find her screaming at something as if someone was killing her, but mostly acting like a teenager fed up with the grown ups around her. And this is how the movie starts, but at least in this one it makes sense. She plays Princess Ann, fed up about her royal assignment, and wishing for freedom just for a little while. And this is why she flees, and encounters journalist Joe Bradley, both having no idea about one another until he goes back to his newspaper for his assignment. And while he tries to get his story, he also shows her around Rome, and she finally gets the sense of freedom that she had been craving. Of course it is a bit of a love story, but you know that it cannot end well as she is royalty and he is not.

One of the classics to see at least once in your life. Did it hold through times? Yes and no. Some of the action sequences on the water are so clearly made with a bad boat model, that I often laughed when I should have been scared. But this is also the story of a very strong British woman, Rose, enlisting the help of a Canadian man, Charles, and persuading him to take his only possession in the world: his boat, to explode the biggest threat to the British army in West Africa: the steamboat Louisa. The movie starts with a very lady like Rose, sister of the local pastor, forcing "civilisation" onto African people. Charlie is the local smuggler, and is a quite rough man. Their friendship seems quite unlikely, and their love even more, but though diversity and a common goal, they get closer. I quite liked this movie, and I do understand why it was recommended to me.

Watching that movie knowing about Kevin Spacey's troubles put everything in a different light. While it is already a very weird story full of perversity, seeing Spacey infatuated with a teen, just makes it even worse. Though the movie is quite disturbing, you cannot help but see the beauty in it: how it is filmed, how Ricky sees the world while his family is broken, and how the director shows changes in each character. You cannot help but see the world through Ricky's eyes (and camera), as if he was to tell you, "look through my eyes, I see the world in a better way than you could". I am happy that I saw the movie, as it is a classic for many people, but I will never watch it again.