This is too stagy for my taste, which makes some sense as it started life on the stage. It's witty, but not the crackling wit stitched from paradox that I get from Lubitsch, rather sedate. It takes place around this rich mansion, but it's not particularly invested in place, the way it is with Welles, or even Capra and Sturges.
The one attribute that makes it stand out is that this is a film about Hepburn stepping into a film so viewers can engage with what moves the icy, indomitable self.
She enters 'the Philadelphia story' knowing it is a story being prepared by nosy journalists who have come to get a scoop on her on the eve of her wedding, the story as the ensuing film.
Three men vie for her affections, each one offering up his own understanding of Hepburn.
Grant as the playboy ex-husband who left her muses that she has been acting the part of callous goddess while missing genuine heart in her performance. The second is her current beau who she is slated to marry the next day; he's entirely smitten with her goddess image and doesn't want her to change, but this understanding of her now appears to her trivial and callow, merely that of an admirer.
And third is Jimmy Stewart as the author who is there to jot down the story for the paper. He is the most suspicious of her wealth and vanity but getting to know her sees her as a radiant soul. The usual shuffling of screwball films ensues about what happened last night and who she's going to marry after all.
It's not particularly my kind of thing but there's obviously a wide audience of Hepburn lovers and fans of the era that will be more than happy with it.
The one attribute that makes it stand out is that this is a film about Hepburn stepping into a film so viewers can engage with what moves the icy, indomitable self.
She enters 'the Philadelphia story' knowing it is a story being prepared by nosy journalists who have come to get a scoop on her on the eve of her wedding, the story as the ensuing film.
Three men vie for her affections, each one offering up his own understanding of Hepburn.
Grant as the playboy ex-husband who left her muses that she has been acting the part of callous goddess while missing genuine heart in her performance. The second is her current beau who she is slated to marry the next day; he's entirely smitten with her goddess image and doesn't want her to change, but this understanding of her now appears to her trivial and callow, merely that of an admirer.
And third is Jimmy Stewart as the author who is there to jot down the story for the paper. He is the most suspicious of her wealth and vanity but getting to know her sees her as a radiant soul. The usual shuffling of screwball films ensues about what happened last night and who she's going to marry after all.
It's not particularly my kind of thing but there's obviously a wide audience of Hepburn lovers and fans of the era that will be more than happy with it.