Pygmalion: A social experiment that gets a little too real

Is it worth your time?

If you like movies where people talk—and I mean really talk—then yes. If you are looking for something fast-paced with explosions, maybe skip it. It is great for people who enjoy watching power dynamics shift in real-time, but if you have zero patience for old-school theater vibes, you’ll probably be bored by the second act.

Gustaf Gründgens really carries the weight here. He plays Higgins with this weird, twitchy arrogance that feels almost modern. You can see him twitch when he hears a bad vowel sound. It is a very specific kind of irritation.

The transformation of Eliza is the meat of the thing, but the movie is actually much more interested in the professor’s fragile ego. It’s funny how he treats her like a project, not a person. You can almost feel the movie trying to warn us that he is a total nightmare to live with.

There is this one scene—the garden party—where the tension is just thick. It’s supposed to be high society, but it feels like a minefield. The way the camera lingers on her face while she tries to keep a straight face is just perfect. It’s not fancy filmmaking, but it gets the job done.

I found myself thinking about I'm No Angel halfway through. Both movies deal with women navigating social ladders, but they approach the climb from completely different sides of the tracks. One is about wit and grit, while this one is all about phonetics and the terrifying power of a well-placed 'h'.

The pacing is a bit uneven, honestly. Sometimes the dialogue flies by so fast I had to rewind—well, mentally rewind—just to catch the insult. Other times, the movie stops dead to let a character make a point about class that we already understood ten minutes ago. We get it, he is a snob!

I really enjoyed how the film didn't try to make Higgins too likable. He’s brilliant, sure, but he is also kind of a bully. It’s refreshing to see a lead character who is actually frustrating. He is not the hero; he is just a guy with a hobby that happens to involve changing someone's entire identity.

• The lighting in the study is incredibly moody.
• Some of the side characters are just there to look confused and fancy.
• The ending is... well, it’s abrupt. Almost like they ran out of film.

It’s not a perfect movie, but it is a sharp one. It feels like a stage play that woke up one morning and decided to be a film. 🎩