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The trouble with "Funny Girl" is almost everything except Barbra Streisand . She is magnificent.

But the film itself is perhaps the ultimate example of the roadshow musical gone overboard. It is over-produced, over-photographed and over-long. The second half drags badly. The supporting characters are generally wooden. And in this movie, believe me, everyone who ain't Barbra Streisand is a supporting character.

That makes the movie itself kind of schizo. It is impossible to praise Miss Streisand too highly; hard to find much to praise about the rest of the film.

She turns out, curiously enough, to be a born movie star. It was her voice that made her famous, and that's fair enough. But it will be her face and her really splendid comic ability that make her a star. She has the best timing since Mae West, and is more fun to watch than anyone since the young Katharine Hepburn .

She doesn't actually sing a song at all; she acts it. She does things with her hands and face that are simply individual; that's the only way to describe them. They haven't been done before. She sings, and you're really happy you're there.

Unfortunately, one gathers Miss Streisand is a rather set-minded lady as well as a star. She wants her way on the set, they say; and Miss Streisand has been heard to claim William Wyler didn't direct her, she directed herself. I doubt that. But someone, Wyler or someone, should have directed the rest of the movie. The sets (Hollywood sound stages mostly) and the supporting roles seem designed merely to backdrop the magnificent Barbra. And in the end, that hurts the movie.

Take Omar Sharif , for example. Until now, he has always been a human being on the screen. He has walked, talked, breathed, moved around. In "Funny Girl," he becomes a cigar-store Indian. There has rarely been a more wooden male performance in a musical. I guess we're supposed to look at Miss Streisand, who is nearly always on the screen, instead.

Well, this is her first film and that is a pleasant task. But it would certainly have been a better musical if more attention had been given to the total effect, and less to Barbra's admittedly great talent. As it is, the more modest " Finian's Rainbow " is better this season as a well-balanced musical.

"Funny Girl" is lopsided; good when Barbra's there, transcendent during her best numbers ("Don't Rain On My Parade," "My Man" and a roller-skating sequence), and curiously flat the rest of the time, as if everyone were waiting until she got back.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Funny Girl (1968)

149 minutes

Walter Pidgeon as Flo Ziegfeld

Omar Sharif as Nick Arnstein

Kay Medford as Rose Brice

Barbra Streisand as Fanny Brice

Anne Francis as Georgia James

• William Wyler-Ray Stark

Directed by

• William Wyler

From a screenplay by

• Isobel Lennart

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Funny Girl Reviews

It’s remarkable how much of the film is constructed on, and succeeds because of, Streisand’s face and how it is lit and framed.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 28, 2024

William Wyler may have been the perfect choice to center Streisand, for the first time, on the big screen.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 25, 2024

This is a must-see for fans of musicals and Barbra Streisand and as a study of how a successful musical can be transitioned into a film. This is all about Streisand, but a Broadway and Hollywood fairytale about Fanny Brice.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 19, 2024

The score remains imprinted on several generations...

Full Review | Jun 12, 2023

Though the premise isn’t particularly original or memorable, Streisand’s turn is incredibly fitting.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Sep 22, 2022

[Barbra Streisand] is the best of all possible reasons to see the movie version of the musical. In short, she is sublime -- which saves the film as a whole from suffocating under its own glossy, ill-conceived hugeness.

Full Review | Mar 2, 2022

In Barbra Streisand Funny Girl thumps down an ace.

Full Review | Jul 16, 2018

It's hard to think of Funny Girl, in fact, apart from Barbra Streisand. She is the life force. Director William Wyler simply drapes the opulent show around her.

Full Review | Jan 23, 2018

When she is singing--in a marvelous scene on roller skates--when she throws a line away, or shrugs, or looks funny or sad, she has a power, gentleness and intensity that rather knocks all the props and sets and camera angles on their ear.

Full Review | Jan 9, 2018

William Wyler's adaption of the stage musical is transformative for many millennials. Whether wearing a hijab, sporting a yarmulke, or bareheaded, my students embrace Streisand's Brice and the star/character's professional chutzpah & insecurities.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Jan 9, 2018

In lesser hands this would fall flat because nothing is written to comfort the supporting players. They are extras with names and blurred faces.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 3, 2017

Dazzling musical romance is long but entertaining.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 15, 2012

Legendary diva Streisand won an Oscar for her performance as legendary Ziegfeld girl Fanny Brice... who else but Babs could have portrayed her so well?... Great film it isn't, but it sure is a helluva lot of fun.

Full Review | Nov 19, 2008

Streisand is stunning, but the film is a trial, particularly when the music disappears somewhere around the 90-minute mark and all that's left is leaden melodrama.

Full Review | Aug 12, 2008

A fine movie musical and a nice reminder of the time when Streisand was a talent rather than a 'phenomenon'.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 12, 2008

This extended Streisand Special has done absolutely nothing to correct the flaws in the Broadway original.

Few film debuts in the 1960s were more auspicious than that of Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 12, 2008

Barbra Streisand in her Hollywood debut makes a marked impact.

I wish William Wyler's direction was more inventive and humurous (it's his first musical), but Streisand gives a meteoric performance, as Fanny Frice and as herself, showing a tremendous charismatic presence that goes beyond physical looks and acting.

Full Review | Original Score: B+ | Feb 7, 2008

[Streisand gives] a natural, unforced performance, easily one of the three or four best Best Actresses in Oscar history.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 28, 2008

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Common sense media reviewers.

Dazzling musical romance is long but entertaining.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

With much effort and courage (and some good luck,

Fanny Brice is portrayed as a talented, off-beat,

One suggestive -- and sometimes comic -- song find

One "hell," one "damn."

Lots of social drinking in restaurants, at home, i

Parents need to know that this elegant, romantic, and often funny musical is wonderful entertainment, but might be too long and mature for many tweens. The movie's nearly three hours focuses on the ups and downs in the romance of Fanny Brice and Nick Arnstein and includes some mature thematic material, such as marital…

Positive Messages

With much effort and courage (and some good luck, too), talented performers can succeed; however, even great success doesn't necessarily bring personal happiness. Even the smartest and most gifted among us don't necessarily make the best decisions. It's helpful to use humor as a way of deflecting personal hurt and disappointment.

Positive Role Models

Fanny Brice is portrayed as a talented, off-beat, and spirited performer who chooses to retain her positive values even as she reaches the heights of show business success. She treats people well and is fair, honorable and generous. Still, she blindly trusts and loves a man who is weak and self-destructive, subjecting herself to heartache because of him.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

One suggestive -- and sometimes comic -- song finds Nick Arnstein seducing the innocent young Fanny Brice. At the end of the song, they kiss and sink down onto a sofa. It's implied thereafter that they are involved in a sexual relationship. There are numerous passionate kisses between Fanny and Nick throughout. There is no nudity, but there are lots of revealing costumes. Trademark statuesque, beautiful Ziegfield Follies girls appear on stage in gowns which showing lots of leg and cleavage.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Lots of social drinking in restaurants, at home, in gambling club, including to "drown their sorrows." Two leading characters smoke.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that this elegant, romantic, and often funny musical is wonderful entertainment, but might be too long and mature for many tweens. The movie's nearly three hours focuses on the ups and downs in the romance of Fanny Brice and Nick Arnstein and includes some mature thematic material, such as marital woes and dishonesty. The romance includes Nick's smooth seduction of the innocent young Brice and hints of his promiscuity. However, there is no on-camera sexual activity other than passionate kissing and embracing, and no nudity. Many of the glamorous costumes reveal a lot of leg and have plunging necklines. Characters do plenty of social drinking and leading characters smoke cigarettes. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (1)
• Kids say (3)

Based on 1 parent review

What's the Story?

Fanny Brice ( Barbra Streisand , in an Academy Award-winning performance), an icon of comedy and music of the 1930s and 1940s, makes her way from the Jewish ghetto in New York City to the glittering heights of Broadway while she is still a very young woman. Discovered by the famous Florenz Ziegfield ( Walter Pidgeon ), known for his Follies and the beautiful Ziegfield Girls who fill the stage in his shows, Fanny begins as a novelty act and becomes his biggest star. But her personal life follows a different path. She is hopelessly in love with Nicky Arnstein ( Omar Sharif ) a gambler who makes dubious choices and is guided by questionable values. They marry and have a child, but Nick's pride and his mistakes threaten their relationship and Fanny's happiness.

Is It Any Good?

Made in 1968, this is one of the richest musical films of its era, a highlight in a period of filmmaking that was filled with great material. FUNNY GIRL (recipient of eight Academy Award nominations) is comprised of an extraordinary performance by Barbra Streisand in her first film role, dazzling production values with wondrous costumes and sets, a musical score with multiple show-stopping numbers, and a heartfelt story. What's more, the subject matter -- a young woman who becomes a great star but is naive in affairs of the heart -- gives the film emotional complexity and an ending that defies tradition.

Teens with an interest in musical theater or costume design might find this film particularly inspiring. It is interesting to note that the movie took considerable liberties with the real story -- particularly the events in the life of Nick Arnstein and Fanny's naivete -- and that Ray Stark, the producer, was, in fact, Fanny Brice's son-in-law, married to her daughter, Frances Arnstein. A movie sequel Funny Lady , also starring Barbra Streisand as a more mature Fanny Brice, was released in 1975.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the fact that most traditional movie romances follow a familiar pattern: "girl meets boy; girl loses boy; girl gets boy back" (or vice versa). How does this movie differ? What other memorable musical love stories have veered from the traditional path?

Other than her singing voice and comic gifts, what personal qualities do you think made Fanny Brice successful?

The filmmakers are known to have made significant changes from Fanny Brice's real story when adapting it for the stage and film. Does this matter to you? If it does, what resources are available to give you more information?

Movie Details

• In theaters : September 19, 1968
• On DVD or streaming : October 23, 2001
• Cast : Barbra Streisand , Omar Sharif , Walter Pidgeon
• Director : William Wyler
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Columbia Pictures
• Genre : Musical
• Topics : Arts and Dance , Music and Sing-Along
• Run time : 165 minutes
• MPAA rating : G
• Awards : Academy Award , Golden Globe
• Last updated : March 31, 2022

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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My Fair Lady

Meet Me in St. Louis

Fiddler on the Roof

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Release details.

• Duration: 147 mins

Cast and crew

• Director: William Wyler
• Screenwriter: Isobel Lennart
• Walter Pidgeon
• Anne Francis
• Gerald Mohr
• Omar Sharif
• Barbra Streisand
• Kay Medford

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Brief Synopsis

Cast & crew, william wyler, barbra streisand, omar sharif, kay medford, anne francis, walter pidgeon, photos & videos, technical specs.

In turn-of-the-century New York, Fanny Brice, a young Jew from the Lower East Side, dreams of becoming a Broadway star, despite her unglamorous appearance. When she loses her chorus line job at Keeney's Oriental Palace, Fanny lies to enter a roller skating number and, slipping and sliding, is a comedy hit. After the performance, suave gambler Nick Arnstein visits Fanny backstage and helps get her a raise. Soon Fanny's comedy routines come to the attention of Florenz Ziegfeld, and she is hired for his Follies at the New Amsterdam Theatre. On opening night she turns the show's lavish wedding finale into a comedy by appearing as a pregnant bride. Ziegfeld's anger is placated by Fanny's success, however, and he keeps the routine and yields to her demand that she choose her own material. Also at the theater that night is Nick Arnstein, who accompanies her to a party at her mother, Rose's, beer hall and then leaves for Kentucky. One year later, while Fanny is in Baltimore on tour, she again encounters Nick. During their whirlwind affair, Nick loses a fortune on a racehorse he owns and decides to recoup his losses by gambling on an ocean liner crossing the Atlantic. As Fanny prepares to board a train for Chicago, she receives roses and a note from Nick. After phoning her resignation from the Follies to Ziegfeld, she catches a train to New York and boards a tugboat to take her to Nick's Europe-bound ship. After her marriage to Nick, the two move into a lavish manor, and Fanny gives birth to a daughter. Some time later, while Fanny is in rehearsal for a new show, Nick loses his money again and is forced to sell the house. Feeling overpowered by his wife's success, he moves back to New York City and spends more and more time gambling. As his debts mount, Fanny tries to help, but Nick bitterly rejects her offer and becomes involved in a phony bond deal. When he is exposed, he gives himself up and is sent to jail. Over a year later, he comes to Fanny's dressing room before her performance and tells her goodby. Songs: "I'm the Greatest Star" (Fanny), "If a Girl Isn't Pretty" (Rose & Mrs. Strakosh), "Roller Skate Rag," "I'd Rather Be Blue Over You," "His Love Makes Me Beautiful," "People" (Fanny), "You Are Woman, I Am Man" (Fanny & Nick), "Don't Rain on My Parade," "Second Hand Rose," "Sadie, Sadie," "The Swan," "Funny Girl," "My Man" (Fanny).

Mae Questel

Gerald mohr, frank faylen, mittie lawrence, gertrude flynn, penny santon, john harmon, thordis brandt, bettina brenna, virginia ann ford, alena johnston, mary jane mangler, inga neilsen, sharon vaughn, gene callahan, jacques charles, grant clarke, virginia darcy, david dworski, fred fisher, ray gosnell, james f. hanley, paul helmick, william kiernan, isobel lennart, lepard/neuhart, robert luthardt, lorry mccauley, frank mccoy, bob merrill, arthur piantadosi, channing pollock, reiss & fabrizio, charles j. rice, herbert ross, richard m. rubin, william sands, walter scharf, marshall schlom, irene sharaff, jack solomon, herbert spencer, harry stradling, robert swink, betty walberg, vivienne walker, a. willemetz, maury winetrobe, maurice yvain, photo collections.

Hosted Intro

Best Actress

Award nominations, best cinematography, best editing, best picture, best supporting actress, the essentials - funny girl.

Pop Culture 101 - Funny Girl

Trivia - funny girl - trivia & fun facts about funny girl, trivia - funny girl - trivia & fun facts about funny girl, the big idea - funny girl, behind the camera - funny girl, funny girl - funny girl, critics' corner - funny girl, critics' corner - funny girl.

Hello, gorgeous. - Fanny Brice

You think beautiful girls are going to be in style forever! I should say not! Any day now they're going to be over! Finished! Then it'll be my turn! - Fanny Brice

I'd be happy to wait while you change. - Nick Arnstein

I'd have to change too much, nobody could wait that long. - Fanny

Look, we're going to Delmonico's for supper. Would you care to join us? We'd be happy to wait while you change. - Nick Arnstein

I'd have to change too much. Nobody could wait that long. - Fanny

Where I come from, when two people... well, sort of love each other... oh, never mind. - Fanny Brice

Well? What do they do when they "sort of love each other"? - Nick Arnstein

Well, one of them says, "Why don't we get married?" - Fanny Brice

Really? - Nick Arnstein

Yeah, and sometimes it's even the man. - Fanny Brice

"The Swan" was written especially for this movie. The original number, "Rat-a-Tat-Tat", was deemed too dated (though appropriate for the setting of the show).

Copyright length: 151 min. Filmed in 35mm Panavision and blown up to 70mm for some roadshow presentations.

Miscellaneous Notes

Released in United States July 2009 (Shown at Outfest: Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (Special Events) July 9-19, 2009.)

Limited re-release in United States August 31, 2001 (restored print; New York City, Los Angeles and San Francisco)

Released in United States Fall September 1968

Released in United States September 19, 1968

Expanded re-release in United States Fall 2001

Limited re-release in United States August 31, 2001

Released in United States July 2009

Released in United States November 2003

Shown at Outfest: Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (Special Events) July 9-19, 2009.

Feature acting debut for acclaimed singer Barbra Streisand.

Released in United States November 2003 (Shown at AFI/Los Angeles International Film Festival (Tribute) November 6-16, 2003.)

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Review: In Lea Michele, ‘Funny Girl’ Has Finally Found Its Fanny

The “Glee” star is stupendous in the role Barbra Streisand made famous, turning the 1964 musical into something better than we know it to be.

By Jesse Green

Though it can be a great vehicle, “Funny Girl” has rarely been a great ride. Even its first-rate Jule Styne songs — “I’m the Greatest Star,” “People” and “Don’t Rain on My Parade” among them — are problematic. Not only are the lyrics, by Bob Merrill, often inane (“I’ll light up like a light”?) but the challenge of the vocal writing that made Barbra Streisand a star in 1964 makes casting anyone else now a nightmare.

And let’s not get started on the book, by Isobel Lennart, which in telling the (mostly fictional) story of the early-20th-century comic Fanny Brice, and her disastrous love affair with the gambler Nick Arnstein, seems to have been assembled from a warehouse of used musical-comedy parts. They do not work well together, however well they work individually.

The revival that opened in April at the August Wilson Theater — its first on Broadway — only made matters worse. Harvey Fierstein’s meddling with the confusing book confused it further by giving Nick (Ramin Karimloo) more to do; nobody cares what Nick does. And Fanny, whom we do care about, was just too much of a reach for Beanie Feldstein, offering a pleasant performance in a role that shouldn’t be. “Without a stupendous Fanny to thrill and distract,” I wrote at the time , “the musical’s manifold faults become painfully evident.”

Lea Michele, who took over the role on Sept. 6 , turns out to be that stupendous Fanny. Yes, she even lights up like a light. Both vulnerable and invulnerable, kooky and ardent, she makes the show worth watching again.

She can’t make it good, though. Michael Mayer’s production is still garish and pushy, pandering for audience overreaction. A confetti cannon tries to put an exclamation point on a dud dance. Many of the minor players overplay. The lighting by Kevin Adams would make a rat clap, and the unusually ugly set by David Zinn seems weaponized against intimacy. It looks like a missile silo.

But at least “Funny Girl” now has a missile: a performer who from her first words (“Hello, Gorgeous”) shoots straight to her target and hits it.

It has been a tortuous path to this obviously right and seemingly predestined casting, with decades of false starts involving Lauren Ambrose, Debbie Gibson, Sheridan Smith and others. Feldstein was just another in the long list of misfires; after she ditched the show in a cloud of apparent acrimony — a cloud everyone denied — her standby, Julie Benko, took over.

Benko, who is still the Thursday night Fanny, sings the role very well, so you never worry, as you did with Feldstein, that she might not make it through the songs. Then too, Benko gets closer to the dark heart of the comedy, backfilling its shtick with something like anger. Still, good as she is, her voice and the rest of her performance don’t yet match; she even has a different accent when acting the role than when singing it.

Michele matches throughout. Her voice, an exceptional instrument, is not an ornament but a tool, and she knows how to use it. That in itself is no surprise; she seems to have been trying out for the role since 2009. Over the course of her six seasons as Rachel Berry on “Glee,” she sang most of Fanny’s numbers with exceedingly high polish, if sometimes a powerful whiff of Streisand karaoke. (Rachel’s middle name was Barbra.)

Onstage, though, the Barbraisms are less in evidence. A few are unavoidable, Streisand having in essence rewritten, and improved, some of Styne’s vocal lines. And in general, anyone hoping to make a success of “Funny Girl” has to follow the originator’s template, because it was created for her — you might almost say “on” her, like a couture gown. The songs work (and the scenes nearly do) when a performer can access a manic desperation to succeed, not caring how she comes off or what she loses in the process. Let’s just say that Michele, like her idol, has that access.

What surprised me in “Funny Girl” is that she can also access much more. You need not understand the details of vocal placement to understand that a performer able to belt all of “People” without worrying about switching registers has plenty of bandwidth left over to worry about more important things. When Michele sings the song, it’s not a bald statement but a genuine inquiry: Can Fanny be successful in both love, which means a lot to her, and work, which means more?

And at the end, when life has delivered its unhappy answer, Michele isn’t playing at sadness. A hot mess of tears, she takes her time recovering sufficiently to move into the finale, a reprise of “Don’t Rain on My Parade.” It’s a mark of her shaping of the role that she sings it quite differently than she did at the end of Act I, when Fanny is reaching outward to grab the life she wants. Now she’s reaching inward to rescue herself from emotional disaster — a point Michele makes with typical vocal daredevilry in the song’s final heart-stopping phrase.

Unfortunately, you may not hear it. Despite the amped-up vocals, the amped-up audience is often even louder than Michele. (On Tuesday, one of her several mid-show standing ovations was actually mid-song.) You can’t blame fans for their excitement, and at least there’s something worth being excited about here. But it seems to me that the production is reaping the dubious reward of its constant goading and prodding. You can see Michele having to calculate on the fly how and when to resume, or whether to blast right through, unheeded.

In a way, she’s almost too serious for the show; comedy, at any rate, isn’t her (or its) best suit. That’s a problem when the title is “Funny Girl.” Still, when Michele is given a good situation to play, as when Nick seduces her in a restaurant, she gets good laughs. Other times, as in an embarrassing in-joke added post-Feldstein, coyly referring to a song sung on roller skates in the 1968 movie , she looks lost, even as the audience yuks on cue.

I hope she’ll keep burrowing into the role and not give in to the general hysteria. She certainly has allies in that fight: Karimloo, especially as the broken man Nick becomes at the end, does some lovely, quiet work, and Tovah Feldshuh, having replaced the zany Jane Lynch as Fanny’s mother, is so gritty and salty she could turn ice into slush. In the smaller role of Florenz Ziegfeld, Peter Francis James remains a model of dignified restraint.

Charismatic performers make the thing they’re performing disappear. In effect, they replace it; their voice becomes its voice, their skin its story. That Michele makes “Funny Girl” seem better than we know it to be is the wonderful but possibly irreproducible product of the mutual need between an old-fashioned talent on the way up and an old-fashioned musical on the way down. It’s a need like that of lovers, and you know what the song says about them: Despite all evidence, they’re the luckiest people in the world.

Funny Girl At the August Wilson Theater, Manhattan; funnygirlonbroadway.com . Running time: 2 hours 50 minutes.

Jesse Green is the chief theater critic for The Times. His latest book is “Shy,” with and about the composer Mary Rodgers. He is also the author of a novel, “O Beautiful,” and a memoir, “The Velveteen Father.” More about Jesse Green

‘Funny Girl’ Review: A Star Is Reborn With Lea Michele Headlining Broadway Musical

By Frank Rizzo

Frank Rizzo

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Take two, and not a moment too soon. Lea Michele steps into one of Broadway ’s most iconic roles, which in her mind — or at least the mind of Rachel Berry, the character she played in TV’s “Glee” — she was destined to play. And dammit, she’s right.

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Older since her “Glee” days — she’s 36 now — the actor brings a welcome maturity to the role of Fanny Brice, the part that launched Barbra Streisand into the stratosphere. Michele’s maturity especially helps in the show’s second half, when the actor is able to lend this Fanny an emotional depth that is lacking in the script.

Her well-seasoned acting chops (she’s been on Broadway stages since she was 9) allows her to calibrate Fanny’s mix of raw ambition, neediness, nerve and vulnerability. Some of Fanny’s insecurities, beneath her bravado, are rooted in her issues of class, education and looks. Michele is clearly a beauty that a period wig can’t hide, but we nevertheless sign on to the delusion.

But is this “Funny Girl” funny? While Michele doesn’t transcend the schtick and corn of the script, she makes the most of what she has been given with playfulness and without pandering.

What serves the show most is her singing, making a triumph of the first act musical trifecta of “I’m the Greatest Star,” “People” and “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” with plenty of power notes left over to elevate the rest of the Jule Styne-Bob Merrill score. Though hardly re-conceiving the songs, Michele is able to distance herself enough from Streisand’s phrasing to take ownership — or at least to become a savvy caretaker — of the material.

Lending solid support is another welcome addition, Tovah Feldshuh, who infuses the role of Fanny’s mother with authenticity, humor and kick. Ramin Karimloo as Fanny’s buff gambler husband Nicky Arnstein remains smooth, sexy and luminous as a satin bedsheet. There’s also musical chemistry with Michele, and their singing, especially in the poignant duet “Who Are You Now,” is sublime.

Jared Grimes still dazzles in the showcase tap numbers that earned him a Tony nomination. Martin Moran and Peter Francis James continue their solid turns as theater owner Tom Keeney and Ziegfeld, and Toni DiBuono and Debra Cardona as Mrs. Brice’s poker buddies are evergreen delights.

But even Michele, Karimloo and a heightened cast can’t save the deflated second act, which still creaks with silent-film melodrama. Harvey Fierstein’s light revision of the script doesn’t solve fundamental issues with the largely fictional bio of Brice, who starred in multiple entertainment mediums during the first half of the 20th century, but is now largely remembered through this musical.

The production still looks ill-conceived, with a dour set and outfits and merely-okay choreography. But a confetti canon? Proscenium lights meant to trigger audience responses? Really?

What transcends it all is the presence of a Fanny who can deliver the musical, emotional and comedic goods — and with a backstage story to boot. With Streisand, it was that of a star being born. With Michelle, it’s one being reborn.

August Wilson Theatre; 1,219 seats; $599 top. Reviewed Oct. 9, 2022. Running time: 2 HOURS, 50 MINS.

• Production: A presentation by Sonia Friedman, Scott Landis, David Babani,  Roy Furman, No Guarantees, Adam Blanshay Productions, Daryl Roth, Stephanie P. McClelland, Lang Entertainment Group, Playing Field, Gavin Kalin, Charles & Nicholas Talar, Fakston Productions, Sanford Robertson, Craig Balsam, Cue to Cue Productions, Leonofffedermanwolofsky Productions, Judith Ann Abrams/Peter May, Hunter Arnold, Creative Partners Productions, Elizabeth Armstrong, Jane Bergere, Jean Doumanian, Larry Magid, Rosalind Productions, Iris Smith, Kevin & Trudy Sullivan, Julie Boardman/Kate Cannova, Heni Koenigsberg/Michelle Riley, Mira Road Productions/Seaview, In Fine Company, Elie Landau, Brian Moreland, Henry R. Munoz III & Kyle Ferari Munoz, Maggioabrams/Brian & Dayna Lee of a musical in two acts written by Isobel Lennart, revised by Harvey Fierstein, music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Bob Merrill.
• Crew: Directed by Michael Meyer; choreography, Ellenore Scott; tap choreography, Ayodele Casel; sets, David Zinn; costumes, Susan Hilferty; lighting, Kevin Adams; sound, Brian Ronan; orchestrations, Chris Walker; music supervisor and director, Michael Rafter; production stage manager, Lisa Iacucci.
• Cast: Lea Michele, Ramin Karimloo, Jared Grimes, Tovah Feldshuh, Peter Francis James, Ephie Aardema, Debra Cardona, Martin Moran, Toni DiBuono, Miriam Ali, Amber Ardolino, Daniel Beeman, Colin Bradbury, Margery Cohen, Kurt Csolak, John Michael Fiumara, Leslie Donna Flesner, Tom Galantich, Afra Hines, Masumi Iwai, Aliah James, Danielle Kelsey, Stephen Mark Lukas, Alicia Lundgren, John Manzari, Connor McRory, Katie Mitchell, Justin Prescott, Mariah Reives, Timothy Shew, Barbara Tirrell, Leslie Blake Walker.

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Review: Broadway’s ‘Funny Girl’ a Beanie Feldstein triumph

This image released by Polk & Co. shows Beanie Feldstein, center, with the cast during a performance of “Funny Girl.” (Matthew Murphy/Polk & Co. via AP)

This image released by Polk & Co. shows Ramin Karimloo, center, with the cast during a performance of “Funny Girl.” (Matthew Murphy/Polk & Co. via AP)

This image released by Polk & Co. shows Beanie Feldstein, center, during a performance of “Funny Girl.” (Matthew Murphy/Polk & Co. via AP)

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NEW YORK (AP) — When Broadway’s revival of “Funny Girl” begins, star Beanie Feldstein sits in a Broadway dressing room, getting ready to go on. She wonders nervously to her assistant: “You ever feel like there’s someone watching from the shadows?”

The line takes an extra jolt of meaning because Feldstein is stepping into hallowed ground. She’s playing Fanny Brice, a role so associated with Barbra Streisand in the ‘60s that no Broadway revival has been attempted until now — with a Sunday opening at the August Wilson Theatre that even coincides with Streisand’s 80th birthday.

And yet Feldstein stays strong, letting the pressure drop like one of her fabulous coats slipping off her back onto the floor. Almost three hours after that scene, she’s completely won the audience over. No shadows are holding her down.

Feldstein’s Brice is earthy, saucy, physical — a lovable underdog. She may not posses Bab’s vocal prowess, but she radiates the hunger, wry humor and fragility to be an unlikely heroine for a new generation. Her opening line is a classic and she owns it: “Hello, gorgeous,” she says to the mirror.

Set in New York City before and following World War I, “Funny Girl” is a semi-biographical musical account of the life of stage star Brice and her loving but ultimately toxic relationship with gambler-businessman Nicky Arnstein.

If any show was tonally split into two, this is it. Act One is a comedy as it charts Brice’s rise from awkward Brooklyn-born Jewish hoofer to comic star of the Ziegfeld Follies. Act Two is a downer, the fall of two lovers who finally understand that they are incompatible.

The creative team led by assured director Michael Mayer have their own challenges — 27 scene changes, more than a dozen songs and a cast of over 30. Costumes by Susan Hilferty are sumptuous and David Zinn’s set uses a revolving turntable around a giant brick cone at the center of the stage that opens to be various interiors — living rooms and train stations, among them.

Though the Jule Styne-Bob Merrill song list has been scrambled over time, two of the most famous are here, “People” and “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” and Feldstein makes the former small and sadly longing, while the latter is a boisterous, almost bullying threat. Both appear toward the end of Act One and the second half looses steam and treads water for a while.

Ramin Karimloo plays Arnstein stilted at first, struggling with a role both slimy and charismatic, but ends strongly, always shining when he’s singing. His Arnstein remains a bit of a cipher, often drenched in a kind of noir that’s not in keeping with the rest of the show.

“Glee” star Jane Lynch as Brice’s mom is at her cutting, catty best, a master of comic timing, while Jared Grimes as a pal of Brice nearly tap-dances away with the show, a bright spark of talent and energy whenever he’s on stage.

But the show rests and falls on Feldstein, who must posses as Brice both a grand confidence — “I’m the greatest star” — and an insecurity (“You mean it?”). Brice is a beacon for all the misfits, a stand-in for the unconventional — “a bagel on a plate full of onion rolls” — and Feldstein nails it. Plus, she can deliver a “fakachta” with authenticity.

Highlights include a hysterically seductive and hungry “You Are Woman, I Am Man;” a crowded celebration of married life in “Sadie, Sadie;” the touching duet “Who Taught Her Everything She Knows”; and the showstopper-in-the-show “Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat” with 12 dancers mimicking soldiers. Look for a moment when Karimloo shuffles playing cards theatrically and Lynch does the same not long after.

The original book by Isobel Lennart has been tweaked by Harvey Fierstein, who also supplies the preshow warning about silencing our phones. There is a winking, fourth-wall-smashing flavor to the show, with Feldstein starting Act Two by jumping up through the orchestra pit and Grimes acknowledging and encouraging cheers during his Act One dance break. Confetti cannons and fake dollar bills are also tossed into the audience, perhaps too cloying a step.

It turns out you don’t need that. All you need is Beanie Feldstein. Hello, gorgeous, indeed.

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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Funny Girl Reviews

• 89   Metascore
• 2 hr 25 mins
• Drama, Music, Comedy
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Barbra Streisand won an Oscar for her portrayal of legendary stage comedian Fanny Brice as she breaks into show business, rises to stardom with the Ziegfeld Follies and finds heartache in her marriage to big-time gambler Nicky Arnstein, who at first finds it amusing to be referred to as "Mr. Brice," but then begins to resent his wife's fame and fortune. Streisand actually shared the Best Actress Oscar that year with "The Lion in Winter" star Katharine Hepburn.

Few film debuts in the 1960s were more auspicious than that of Barbra Streisand in FUNNY GIRL. Already a legit and recording star, she shot to superstardom and nabbed an Academy Award for best actress in the bargain. William Wyler's musical debut is less assured than one would have liked, but no matter; La Babs had played musical-comedy star Fanny Brice on Broadway and had the role down pat by the time director Wyler brought the story to the screen. In the early 1900s in New York City, young Fanny, an ugly duckling with an unstoppable ambition to be a star, is determined to get out of the Lower East Side. Her big break comes when she's spotted by handsome gambler Nicky Arnstein (Sharif), who helps her catch the eye of Florenz Ziegfeld (Pidgeon). Ziegfeld hires her for his new Follies presentation, where her subversive comic style proves extraordinarily popular; soon she is one of the Follies' biggest stars. The remainder of the picture--which, despite its real-life subject, tells a formulaic story--recounts her steady rise to national celebrity and her tumultuous marriage to Arnstein. The oddly cast Sharif is better than usual, but Streisand, of course, is most of the show, belting out songs, pulling heartstrings, alternating between raucous slapstick and dramatic power, and generally demonstrating that she has arrived in a big way. The memorable Broadway score was augmented for the screen with several tunes from Brice's life, including her signature, "My Man."

Lea Michele in Funny Girl: Yes, she is that good

There are 3 things you need to be a great Fanny Brice. Lea Michele has 2 of them.

by Constance Grady

The atmosphere at Broadway’s Funny Girl revival right now is not so much electric as it is delightedly salacious, the audience salivating for sweet, sweet gossip. After all the Funny Girl drama this summer — the rapid ousting of sweet Beanie Feldstein as Fanny Brice, the musical’s lead, and her replacement with reputed bully Lea Michele — everyone in that theater has put up their cold, hard cash to find out: Was it worth it? All the scandal, the bad optics? Could Lea Michele possibly be that good?

She’s not exactly Streisand. But she comes pretty damn close.

Funny Girl is a bizarre show, a hackneyed hagiography to a vaudeville star whose Isobel Lennart-penned book is the midcentury equivalent to Glitter ’s screenplay. Despite its cliché-ridden plot about a poor girl who becomes a star, only to risk her stardom for her marriage to a man who wasn’t worthy of her, Funny Girl became immortal when it debuted on Broadway in 1964. Mostly, that was thanks to the twin pillars of its glorious Jule Styne songs and Barbra Streisand’s iconic performance in the lead role. (Bob Merrill provides the just-okay lyrics.) Every production since then has had to live in the shadow of their legacy.

Streisand proved that Funny Girl can be great, if you make the songs work and if you have a terrific Fanny Brice: someone who’s funny, who has a voice big enough to nail Styne and Merrill’s octave-spanning ballads, and who can make the audience believe unquestioningly in her theatrical genius and will to power. Lea Michele nails two out of those three qualifications, and that ain’t bad at all.

Michele proved she had the vocal chops to pull off a convincing Streisand dupe way back in her Glee days, where she covered a series of Funny Girl songs in performances that tended to ape Streisand’s distinctive phrasing and pronunciations. (“ The sun’s a ball of buttah ,” anyone?) Now, at 36, she still has the pure, supple tone that made her a TV star, but she’s acquired the gravitas and confidence it takes to move past mimicry. She can interpret stone-cold classics like “People” and “I’m the Greatest Star” with a technique that nods to Streisand without copying her beat for beat, and her belt on “Don’t Rain on My Parade” fills the theater.

Is this funny girl funny? Not exactly, but she makes the jokes charming. Michele approaches Fanny’s one-liners and extended physical comedy bits with a hint of despair that suggests she finds their self-deprecation humiliating. Regardless, she throws all her Rachel Berry A-student determination at her jokes (watch her try desperately to keep a fake mustache glued to her face while patter-singing in an old-timey Yiddish accent). The combination ends up feeling endearing: Look, she’s suffering for us.

That determination, in the end, is what makes Michele’s Fanny Brice so compelling. Funny Girl is the story of Fanny’s will to succeed, her determination that she won’t be held back by her skinny legs, the men who can’t see past them, or her unworthy husband. It is the tale of ambition triumphing over all. That’s a quality Michele has always had in spades — and now, after the scandal in 2020 that saw her losing endorsement deals over her reported history of bullying on set, her ambition has been sharpened with a fine edge of desperation. She’s acting up on that stage like her career depends on it, which it probably does.

• A complete timeline of the Lea Michele-Beanie Feldstein-Funny Girl casting controversy

The production surrounding Michele by and large doesn’t rise to her level. There are exceptions: Jared Grimes, who was nominated for a Tony for the supporting role of dance teacher Eddie, continues to bring a welcome shot of joy to the show with his exuberant tap solos. And Tovah Feldshuh, taking over for Jane Lynch as Fanny’s mother Mrs. Brice, gives an earthy and grounded performance that shows you exactly where Fanny came from. 

But even with the book reworked by Harvey Fierstein, the show still falls apart in Act 2, when the focus moves from Fanny to her sleazy gambler husband, Nick. Fierstein’s revisions attempt to flesh Nick out, but only succeed in giving him more unnecessary stage time, all of which feels wasted until we get back into Fanny’s perspective. (Ramin Karimloo, it must be said, gives a charming and creamy-voiced leading-man performance in the role; it is not his fault Nick is written so badly.)

Michael Mayer’s direction tends to the flat and predictable, with confetti guns and proscenium lighting changes thudding emotional cues out at the audience with all the subtlety of a freight train. David Zinn’s scenic design, meanwhile, is if anything too subtle: A giant and powerfully ugly brick silo looms inexplicably in the center of the set, whether it’s representing Brooklyn or a luxury hotel or a theater. It’s less enigma than annoyance.

Still, if Funny Girl ’s legacy proves anything, it’s that this show can withstand a lot — a clichéd story, clunky lyrics, and a questionable set too, why not — as long as it keeps delivering the big moments. 

For Funny Girl to succeed, what it really needs is to land the panicked, nervous exuberance of the long buildup of “Don’t Rain on My Parade” (“Don’t tell me not to live, I’ve simply got to!”), the anxious delight of someone willfully ignoring the good advice of her friends and family to throw her arms around a bad decision that may well ruin her life, simply because she can’t bear not to do it. 

Right now, with Lea Michele at the helm, Funny Girl is landing the big moments. And every time it does, the ravenous, voracious audience rises up out of their seats to applaud, and the gossip starts mattering a little bit less.

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Review: A dazzling Katerina McCrimmon makes for an authentic Fanny Brice in ‘Funny Girl’

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There’s a new Fanny Brice in town, and the question on everyone’s mind is can she live up to the role immortalized by Barbra Streisand?

The best thing about Katerina McCrimmon’s dazzling performance is that she makes the character her own. What else could she do? This touring production of the 2022 Broadway revival, directed by Michael Mayer, has its own history to contend with.

A miscast Beanie Feldstein launched the Broadway return of “Funny Girl,” and even those of us predisposed to love her couldn’t help leaving the show shaking our heads in bafflement. Rescue eventually came in the nuclear package of Lea Michele , who seized the part of Fanny Brice as though it had been unfairly denied her ever since she had been singing songs from the show on “Glee.” It was a perfect confluence of talent, type and tenacity, and Michele delivered one of the most sensational Broadway performances of the 21st century — a replacement who more than atoned for the revival’s original sin of not casting her in the first place.

No one could expect lightning to strike in exactly the same way. This touring production, which opened at the Ahmanson Theatre on Wednesday, wisely opts to go in a completely different direction.

McCrimmon is a powerhouse singer, don’t get me wrong. She brings the house down in Fanny’s poleaxing first-act numbers, “I’m the Greatest Star,” “People” and “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” from the golden age score by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill. (Despite some ill-calibrated acoustics, the overture alone seemed to have a euphoric effect on Ahmanson patrons with long memories.)

But the distinguishing feature of McCrimmon’s performance is that it brings us closer to the real Fanny Brice, the vaudeville comedian who struck it big in the Ziegfeld Follies. Streisand and Michele were swathed in preternatural glamour. Fanny is made to feel like chopped liver in the looks department, but the star radiance of these performers couldn’t help poking through the character’s humble beginnings.

McCrimmon’s Fanny, by contrast, has the hectic air of a jobbing performer, a scrapper more than a sure thing, one who learned to talk as fast as humanly possible before the door slams in her face. What sets her apart is the authenticity of her humor. She knows how ludicrous she appears on stage in a lineup of leggy girls. But it’s her wisecracks — with their racy, self-deprecating wildness — that allow her to shine on her own terms.

The emphasis on “Funny Girl” tends to be on nailing the vintage New York Jewish milieu. Harvey Fierstein’s revision of Isobel Lennart’s book relocates Fanny’s origins to Brooklyn from the Lower East Side, but it’s all the same world. Melissa Manchester, a game trouper, brings her flamboyant Bronx pedigree to the role of Mrs. Brice. (It’s clear where Fanny has gotten her “oy vey” and “fakakta” exhalations from.) Projections of tenements give David Zinn’s fleet scenic design that old-timey Big Apple flavor.

But it’s the seamlessness between Fanny’s professional and personal life that McCrimmon captures to perfection. Consistency of character might not seem like such a spectacular theatrical virtue, but it’s what makes this Fanny not just unique but historically credible. McCrimmon’s portrayal resists the Broadway myth to find mortal radiance instead.

Feldstein, to her credit, was a more adept physical comedian. Fanny’s vaudeville turns lack the pop they had on Broadway. The vigor and vibrancy have faded on the road, but the backstage business is just right.

Smitten yet too sensitive to insist, Eddie Ryan (Izaiah Montaque Harris, tap dancing his way into our affections) takes Fanny under his wing, becoming her dance captain and lovelorn confidant. Florenz Ziegfeld (Walter Coppage) is accustomed to ruling his Follies with an iron fist but he comes to recognize that strong-willed Fanny is a jackpot worth indulging. The other dancers can’t help getting a kick out of the kook who’s boosting box office for everyone.

When McCrimmon’s Fanny is wooed by the elegant, smooth-talking, alluringly shady Nick Arnstein (Stephen Mark Lukas), she never loses Fanny Brice’s protective comic armor. No, the romance between this Fanny and Nick isn’t as sultry as it was when Michele’s Fanny and Ramin Karimloo’s Nick melted into each other at the August Wilson Theatre in New York. But what Lukas’ Nick sees in McCrimmon’s Fanny — a bright, lovable, hilariously original woman — redounds to his credit.

Lukas’ portrayal deepens as the marriage between Nick and Fanny disintegrates. He can’t stand the idea of living in her shadow — which is no surprise from the guy who puts the moves on her while singing “You Are Woman, I Am Man.” But this Nick is ultimately as sympathetic as the show’s heroine — and just as much of a casualty of a world in which success costs everything you cherish most outside of your own survival.

The ending of “Funny Girl” this time around brought to mind the final moments of Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children,” when the protagonist picks up her wagon in the face of all her losses and heads back into battle to sell her wares. Fanny is a more endearing figure of indomitable endurance but no less determined.

Show business won’t stave off her loneliness — she can’t take the adoring audience home with her, as she wistfully muses — but it’s how she presses on. The spotlight is where she thrives. As Fanny acknowledges in “The Music That Makes Me Dance,” she’s “better on stage than at intermission.” And McCrimmon, whose voice grows more majestic and multi-hued as the musical’s emotion ramps up, delivers this aching anthem with heartrending virtuosity.

For the record:

8:53 p.m. April 9, 2024 An earlier version of this review misstated lyrics for “People.” The line is “people who need people are the luckiest people in the world,” not “people who need people are the luckiest people of all.”

This revival of “Funny Girl” revives the glory of musicals past, when songs seemed to spring out of their characters’ souls. Understanding that “people who need people are the luckiest people in the world,” Fanny generously gives herself and theatergoers what we both have been desperately longing for.

‘Funny Girl’

Where: Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A. When: 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Fridays, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sundays. Ends April 28 Tickets: Start at $40 Contact: centertheatregroup.org or (213) 628-2772 Running time: 2 hours, 35 minutes

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Charles McNulty is the theater critic of the Los Angeles Times. He received his doctorate in dramaturgy and dramatic criticism from the Yale School of Drama.

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The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time. The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time. The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time.

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• Trivia Marisa Abela had done most of the singing in this film herself. She trained extensively to mimic Amy Winehouse 's vocals.
• Goofs Blake Fielder-Civil met for the first time Amy Winehouse in 2003. The movie shows that they met at a bar. On the wall, you can see a mural with multiple people and you can see Rihanna with short hair that was her look in 2009. Rihanna's first album came out in 2007.

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Why Lea Michele is not nominated for a 2023 Tony Award for Funny Girl

She may be Funny Girl's greatest star, but the former Glee star was not eligible for a 2023 Tony Award.

Maureen Lee Lenker is a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly with over seven years of experience in the entertainment industry. An award-winning journalist, she's written for Turner Classic Movies, Ms. Magazine , The Hollywood Reporter , and more. She's worked at EW for six years covering film, TV, theater, music, and books. The author of EW's quarterly romance review column, "Hot Stuff," Maureen holds Master's degrees from both the University of Southern California and the University of Oxford. Her debut novel, It Happened One Fight , is now available. Follow her for all things related to classic Hollywood, musicals, the romance genre, and Bruce Springsteen.

Hey, Tony Awards , here Lea Michele is...but only as a performer, not a nominee.

On Sunday night, the former Glee star will take to the Tony Awards stage to perform as Fanny Brice with the company of Funny Girl . But Michele isn't nominated for a Tony, nor was she eligible.

This is because Michele did not originate the role of Fanny Brice in the first-ever Broadway revival of Funny Girl (as audiences should remember, she replaced original star Beanie Feldstein , who also didn't receive a nomination at the 2022 awards ).

In the Tony Awards' 76-year existence, only one cast replacement has ever received a nomination for a competitive award. Larry Kert was nominated for Best Actor in a Musical in 1971 for his portrayal of Bobby in Company after replacing the original star Dean Jones. Jones left the show barely a month after it opened on Broadway and the Tony Awards committee made an exception for Kert, naming him eligible. Kert was nominated but did not win (although Company did win Best Musical that year).

In order for a replacement to be considered Tony eligible, the producing team would have to petition the committee to make an exception. Because Michele did not take over for Feldstein until some five months after Funny Girl opened, they did not request such an exception. (This may also be partly due to the fact that producers drew ire for the way they reportedly handled Feldstein's lackluster critical reception and her subsequent exit ).

Michele, however, does perform as Brice on the new Broadway cast recording made for the revival, which is itself rare (indeed, Dean Jones can be heard on the Company cast album, not Larry Kert). She also announced this year's nominees alongside MJ star, Myles Frost.

Back in 2005, the Tony Awards did make an attempt to recognize replacement cast members due to a number of high profile stars treading the boards as replacements at the time. They named the award "Best Performance by an Actor or Actress in a Recreated Role," but it was never actually bestowed. The committee created the category, but no one performer received the necessary votes to secure a nomination and they opted not to give the award at all.

Funnily enough, this won't mark the first time Michele performs as Fanny Brice on the Tony Awards. In 2010, amidst the success of Glee, she sang "Don't Rain on My Parade," Fanny Brice's Act I closer and a song that became closely associated with Michele due to her performance of it on Glee.

It's unclear whether Michele will reprise the show-stopping number or whether she and her cast will take on another one of the tracks from the revival.

Funny Girl is playing on Broadway at the August Wilson Theatre through Sept. 3.

The 76th Annual Tony Awards will air live from the United Palace in New York's Washington Heights neighborhood on Sunday, June 11, at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBS and Paramount+. Ahead of the event, CBS and Pluto TV will present The Tony Awards: Act One , a live pre-show that begins at 6:30 p.m. ET/3:30 p.m. PT.

Check out the full list of nominees .

Related content:

• Josh Groban, Amber Ruffin, Arian Moayed, and other Tony nominees on gendered categories, Sondheim, and more
• Funny Girl with Lea Michele to end Broadway run in September
• How Lea Michele has been auditioning for Funny Girl for more than a decade

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‘Babes’ Review: A Gross-Out Comedy That’s Hilarious, Inspiring, And Groundbreaking

Director pamela adlon has done the nearly impossible: crafted a film that mines comic gold from people being loving to one another while acting responsibly..

With her sensational feature directorial debut  Babes,   Pamela Adlon has done the nearly impossible.  The comedian, voice-over actor, and showrunner and star of the rightfully beloved FX series Better Things— working from a script by star Ilana Glazer and Josh Rabinowitz (a producer on Glazer’s sitcom  Broad City)— has crafted a film that is at once sophisticated and aggressively sophomoric, profoundly romantic and deeply cynical, and as feminist as a barbecue at Gloria Steinem’s house and yet seemingly apolitical enough to appeal to your average  Entourage  fan. 

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In doing so, Adlon has unshackled that most onerous of summer movie mainstays—the gross-out comedy—from the sexual shame and bodily fear that has come to define the genre and transformed it into something genuinely uplifting. 

The film establishes its point of view (literally) within the first three minutes, when pregnant Dawn ( Michelle Buteau ), meets her ride-or-die since grade school Eden (Ilana Glazer) at the movies on Thanksgiving, an annual tradition going on 20 years. When Dawn’s water breaks, and Eden gets on all fours in the theater to have a look and describe the rhythmic cadence of the drip (“it’s got a swing to it”), we get a clear picture of the assertory and unyielding intimacy at the heart of not only their friendship but also Adlon’s agenda as a filmmaker. 

The gag keeps building, spawning humor physical, societal, scatological, and even hyper-local as the Astoria-based Eden faces the sticker shock of post-birth celebratory sushi from the Upper West Side. The sushi, along with the video game  Mortal Kombat, becomes central to Eden hooking up with Claude, a tuxedoed actor she meets on her epic subway ride home. (The 2 to the 7 to the G to the N, for those keeping score at home.) 

Claude is played with suave vulnerability by Stephan James , star of Barry Jenkins’ 2018 lovestruck James Baldwin adaptation  If Beale Street Could Talk, and Adlon seems inspired by his presence to indulge in a similar type of dreamy romanticism. It’s one of many drastic tone shifts that Adlon handles with an assurance far beyond her freshman status. She’s made a potty humor obsessed movie (a toilet literally blows up in this movie, mercifully off screen) that is also soaked in the autumnal glow and piano bar soundtrack of early Woody Allen. Somehow, it all works. 

When Eden’s dalliance leads to an unexpected pregnancy (yes, she learns, it can happen even when you have your period) and she chooses to keep the baby and raise it without Claude, the film becomes a treatise on the true elasticity of a seemingly unbreakable bond. Both Glazer and Buteau, the stand-up comedian and podcast host who has up until now had only small parts in movies, work off each other beautifully, gracefully intensifying and attenuating their endlessly layered relationship.

They lead a uniformly funny and almost entirely male supporting cast. (Sandra Bernhard is largely wasted as Dawn’s fellow dentist and coworker.) Hasan Minhaj plays Dawn’s open-hearted and moderately flustered husband, whose primary task is to potty train their rapidly regressing four year old. Zodiac ’s John Carroll Lynch shows a deft comic touch as Dawn and Eden’s follicly-challenged OBGYN, while Oliver Platt is quietly heartbreaking as Eden’s estranged and agoraphobic father.     

When so much humor from this genre tends to come from humiliation, cruelty, and idiocy, a film that mines comic gold from people being loving to one another while acting responsibly is inspiring and groundbreaking. From consent to STDs (the Lucas Brothers have a hilarious cameo as twins who run a testing clinic where Eden is a regular), to pressure about lactation, Babes  provides a clearer roadmap for how to navigate sexual intimacy and women’s bodies than any nonfiction film I can recall. (Claire Simon’s 2023 documentary  Our Bodies,  which examines the lives of patients in the obstetrics and gynecology ward of a public hospital in Paris, comes to mind.) 

But what Babes truly excels at is putting the comedic pedal to the metal and not letting up for a minute. I found myself at a low giggle, like a cat’s purr, throughout the whole preceding—that is until the conclusion, when I got a little choked up. 

Fortunately, unlike me, no one in the movie actually cries at the end. It’s pretty much the only bodily fluid  Babes  has no time for. 

• SEE ALSO : Will Keen On Playing Vladimir Putin On Broadway in ‘Patriots’

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