Jean
Dujardin, as film star George Valentin, is Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., John
Gilbert, Rudolph Valentino and every silent film swashbuckler and
leading man in one. He is also, as Jean Dujardin, a star of today. His
co-star, Berenice Bejo, playing Peppy Miller, not only lives up to her
movie name but she combines Ginger Rogers, Debbie Reynolds and Judy
Garland doing a song and dance with Dujardin which in theatres, showing
silent movies, 90 years ago would have had the audiences breaking the
silence.

"The
Artist" shows every aspect of the silent films that entranced the
audiences oh so many years ago. With these two magnetic stars it is hard
to see them being outclassed but they are---by a musical score and a
dog! The musical score controls the feelings of the audience cuing them
to laugh, hold their breath and be in sync with everyone and everything
on the screen

There
is not a scene,and he is in many of them, that Uggie the dog doesn't
steal from whomever appears on the screen with him and he has strong
competiton from John Goodman, James Cromwell, Penelope Ann Miller, Beth
Grant and Ed Lauter to mention a few. There is no doubt if there was an
Oscar for best performance by an animal Uggie would win in a walk. He
makes you laugh, shows his love for his owner and saves the latter's
life, plays dead for effect and is missed when not on screen.

The
screenplay, by Michel Hazanavicius, who also directed the film, is
based on the old chestnut of a story "A Star Is Born" with the older
male star on his way down and the ingunene on her way up falling in
love. As the Director Hazanavicius takes us into a world that very few
of us know of, except maybe an occasional silent film shown on TCM, he
shows us how silents entertained audiences world wide. He uses sound,
except for the score, very sparingly and effectively.

The only mistakes the director makes is not ending the film 2 minutes before he did and not giving Uggie the closing shot!