"Stage Beauty" tries to show off its talent with scenes of great actors playing even greater actors at a time when the theater was everything (at least in England).
Billy Crudup does a swell enough job playing a gender-bending actor best known for his/her role as Desdemona in Shakespeare's "Othello," but with its obnoxious score, trite conflict and unnecessary crudity, the movie collapses under its own weight. Furthermore, Rupert Everett gives a horrendous performance as King Charles II, and Claire Danes wanders about the film aimlessly, seemingly more interested in the authenticity of her accent than the quality of her acting. Like "Being Julia," this film also ends with a final "act-off," but it's far less satisfying.
Of course, the truly disturbing element of "Stage Beauty" is its conclusion about sexuality: If you're gay (which our hero was apparently taught to be during his actress training), simply find a hot female to fornicate with and you'll miraculously be transformed into a straight-as-an-arrow manly man. Crudup delivers a line at the end that tries to imply lingering sexual confusion, but the film never buys into it, and neither do we.
Billy Crudup does a swell enough job playing a gender-bending actor best known for his/her role as Desdemona in Shakespeare's "Othello," but with its obnoxious score, trite conflict and unnecessary crudity, the movie collapses under its own weight. Furthermore, Rupert Everett gives a horrendous performance as King Charles II, and Claire Danes wanders about the film aimlessly, seemingly more interested in the authenticity of her accent than the quality of her acting. Like "Being Julia," this film also ends with a final "act-off," but it's far less satisfying.
Of course, the truly disturbing element of "Stage Beauty" is its conclusion about sexuality: If you're gay (which our hero was apparently taught to be during his actress training), simply find a hot female to fornicate with and you'll miraculously be transformed into a straight-as-an-arrow manly man. Crudup delivers a line at the end that tries to imply lingering sexual confusion, but the film never buys into it, and neither do we.