Notes from a small island
A weblog by Jonathan Ali


Friday, October 15, 2004  

Sienna Miller, who plays Nikki "the Christmas miracle", (and is Law's real-life girlfriend) claims she couldn't watch the original all the way through because "she was shocked by the cruelty of Alfie's character". She is right. He was cruel. But the emotional cruelty was the point of the film. Alfie became aware of it and, with Alfie, a whole generation of men. They took on the burden of change, and succeeded. If New Alfie is seen as "bad", it's because of his failure to "commit".... True, Alfie hits a windscreen to demonstrate sorrow and frustration, but he doesn't look at you with the wary, predatory, cunning, winking charm of his dangerous forbear. He's much too nice: he's what all those suffering, scrubbing girls eventually made of Old Alfie.

-- Fay Weldon (!) waxes nostalgic for Michael Caine and the original Alfie, after seeing the new remake, starring Jude Law.

posted by Jonathan | 1:01 PM 0 comments

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