'The Artist' lighthearted, entertaining and mostly silent

A silent movie in black and white sounds like a gimmick. “The Artist” is anything but.

It’s a wonderfully lighthearted and thoroughly entertaining film that stands as a tribute to cinema from another era. It is, in fact, irresistible.

“The Artist” is something of a mixture of “A Star is Born” (fading old actor mentors young starlet) and “Singing in the Rain” (the talkies ruin silent-movie careers) and includes dozens of movie references that will keep film fans alert.

The movie, touted as an Oscar favorite, is a French production, shot on a low budget over a period of seven weeks in Hollywood, that uses both French and American crew and cast members.

It made its first big splash at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, where its leading man, Jean Dujardin, won the best-actor prize and the scene-stealing terrier named Uggie received a first-ever, special dog award.

Dujardin plays George Valentin, a silent film star who is about to be dethroned by the advent of talking pictures. George discovers a lively dancer-singer named Peppy Miller and helps to turn her into a rising star, just as his fortunes are falling.

George goes bankrupt when he produces a silent film that opens – and bombs – on the same day that Peppy’s hit musical debuts. The 1929 stock market crash doesn’t help his finances.

He tries to commit suicide by setting his house on fire but is saved by his dog, and so it goes. Though she’s a big star and he’s a has-been, Peppy loves George.

Dujardin is considered a favorite for the best-actor Oscar, and he would join Jane Wyman (who played a deaf rape victim in 1948’s “Johnny Belinda”) and John Mills (who was a mute village idiot in 1970’s “Ryan’s Daughter”) as actors who picked up a golden statuette for saying practically nothing.

Bérénice Bejo is a delight as Peppy. The wife of director Michel Hazanavicius, Bejo likely will be nominated in the supporting-actress category. John Goodman plays the tough studio boss. James Cromwell is the star’s valet, Penelope Ann Miller is his estranged wife and Malcolm McDowell portrays a butler.

The film has a few oddities and anachronisms. To begin with, it’s a silent movie about the birth of talkies, and that wouldn’t have been a subject for a silent flick.

The film is set between 1927 and 1932 but uses a couple of songs – Benny Goodman’s “Sing, Sing, Sing” and “Pennies From Heaven” – that weren’t written until later.

Despite the nits, the film is a crowd-pleaser.

But be warned that it takes a different kind of concentration to watch a silent film and that “The Artist” is not totally silent. There are a few sound effects, such as a shocker when a glass tinkles, and a few spoken words.

While it isn’t normal in recent years for an Academy Award-winning best picture to actually be entertaining, “The Artist” may be the exception when the Oscars are awarded Feb. 26.

Any movie that stars a personality as energetic as Uggie and has a heroine named Peppy Miller has got to be good. Mal Vincent, 757-446-2347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com