A Woman of Paris (1923)
In the early 1920s, Charlie Chaplin was at the prime of his career. Having become a major movie star with his classic comedic outings and even creating his first highly successful feature The Kid it seemed like Chaplin would be on the road to an all-time great career which played out in the following years with classics such as City Lights and Modern Times. Later in his career Chaplin also proved himself as a dramatic filmmaker with films like The Great Dictator and Limelight yet all the way back in 1923 despite the success he was having being a mega comedic movie star Chaplin decided to pursue his dramatic goals with A Woman of Paris. The film follows a young woman named Marie (Edna Purviance) who leaves home and moves to Paris even leaving her love Jean (Carl Miller) behind due to a misunderstanding right before they were supposed to leave together. Now a year later Marie is thriving in Paris when she bumps into Jean and once again their romance begins. This was a film I was really excited to see, not just due to it being a Chaplin film which is always enjoyable but also due to the respect I have for this movie existing. This was a huge risk for Chaplin to take and where it unfortunately didn’t pan out in the box office and Chaplin went back to making his more successful comedy films it does give an interesting glance into his goals as a filmmaker and is a rare early look at him trying out making a more serious film.
Obviously being a Chaplin film this is an extremely well-made movie. There is no other filmmaker I can think of that is so good at crafting films from all levels like Chaplin is. He is so involved with every aspect of his films creation allowing him to bring a very specific vision of his films to life. Even not being a comedy with big creative set pieces like the house in The Gold Rush or the factory in Modern Times that is really felt here. Chaplin is a master at building worlds and bringing the audience into them and that is really on display in this movie. From the humble beginnings of the film to the extravagance of Paris, this film has some really solid production design and cinematography bringing these environments to life. The film also has it’s moments where it has some genuine great emotion. Mostly when dealing with themes of regret and wanting more out of life I found this film really worked and connected with me.
Unfortunately that wasn’t all of the film, in fact the reason I came away from this film feeling overall bland and disappointed especially in the context of Chaplin’s filmography was the plot. Especially with seeing what Chaplin could do later in his filmography as creating strong emotional narratives I found this to be one of if not his weakest script and plotline overall. I don’t think it was due to him trying to play it safe expecting some backlash due to it being him doing something different as plenty of the actual moments in the plot are decently risky and interesting but I found the story overall to be lacking. It starts at the very beginning when we are given nothing but the most basic reasons to care about these characters and never really grow a connection to them. From there the plot moves along with bizarre choices made by the characters trying to set up these situations and emotions that feel unnatural and distracting. The film tries to be deeper and more dramatic than it actually is and honestly without connecting to the melodramatic story or the characters I ended up getting quite bored by the film.
Where I certainly do respect this film and Chaplin wanting to take a gamble and do something new I find the end result quite disappointing. Luckily though this is a story already written, unlike if this was a new filmmaker where I would be worried about their future I know that everything turned out ok for Chaplin. He went on to not only continued success in the comedy genre but also eventually making a more successful transition into deeper dramatic films. Not the best but also nothing terrible, A Woman of Paris is a mediocre final product in my opinion but does give us an interesting look at Chaplin as an early filmmaker.
Where I certainly do respect this film and Chaplin wanting to take a gamble and do something new I find the end result quite disappointing. Luckily though this is a story already written, unlike if this was a new filmmaker where I would be worried about their future I know that everything turned out ok for Chaplin. He went on to not only continued success in the comedy genre but also eventually making a more successful transition into deeper dramatic films. Not the best but also nothing terrible, A Woman of Paris is a mediocre final product in my opinion but does give us an interesting look at Chaplin as an early filmmaker.