Chaplin (1992) * * *

 

Directed by:  Richard Attenborough

Starring:  Robert Downey, Jr, Anthony Hopkins, Moira Kelly, Diane Lane, Kevin Kline, James Woods, Nancy Travis, Geraldine Chaplin, Kevin Dunn, Dan Aykroyd

Richard Attenborough's Chaplin tells Charlie Chaplin's story using a fictional writer (Hopkins) interviewing Chaplin at his Swiss mansion circa 1962.   Charlie Chaplin was the sad clown whose Little Tramp was beloved while the real Charlie's personal life was littered with ex-wives, controversy, an enemy in J. Edgar Hoover, and ultimately banishment from his adopted country to Switzerland.  He returned triumphantly in 1972 to accept a lifetime achievement Oscar and received the longest standing ovation in the history of the ceremony.

Robert Downey, Jr. plays Chaplin brilliantly in an Oscar-nominated performance.  He embodies the spirit of the man and the comedian obsessed with work and sex.  Brokenhearted by his mother's insanity and the death of his first love at a young age, Chaplin moved to Hollywood in the early days of cinema to work with celebrated comedy director Mack Sennett (Aykroyd).  He was a gifted physical comic who created the Little Tramp which became his signature character across four different decades, ending with The Great Dictator (1940), where Chaplin lampooned Hitler and Nazism and spoke onscreen for the first and last time.

Downey gives us the epitome of the man who laughs so that he may not cry.  Over 100 years after their creation, Chaplin's films are still beloved.   There were other silent film comedians like Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd, but Chaplin remains in pop culture memory the most.  Most people likely wouldn't know Keaton or Lloyd by sight even if they know the names.  Chaplin endures.  Attenborough's movie sometimes is overly concerned with Chaplin's personal escapades and less about the work which made him immortal, but thanks to the Downey performance and the film's sense of time and place, it gives us a pretty vivid portrait.