Synopsis
An aged Charlie Chaplin narrates his life to his autobiography's editor, including his rise to wealth and comedic fame from poverty, his turbulent personal life and his run-ins with the FBI.
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Cast
- Robert Downey Jr.Charles Spencer Chaplin
- Geraldine ChaplinHannah Chaplin
- Paul RhysSydney Chaplin
- John ThawFred Karno
- Moira KellyHetty Kelly / Oona O'Neill
- Anthony HopkinsGeorge Hayden
- Dan AykroydMack Sennett
- Marisa TomeiMabel Normand
- Penelope Ann MillerEdna Purviance
- Kevin KlineDouglas Fairbanks
- 60
Empire
Sir Richard Attenborough's long-in-the-making account of the life of Sir Charles Chaplin is a film you desperately want to like, but it emerges as a big, shiny, old-fashioned biopic that ultimately fails either to illuminate the genius of its subject or to excite as a story. - 60
The Guardian
Robert Downey Jr sparkles as the British comedy giant but Richard Attenborough's film feels somewhat dutiful around him. - 50
Chicago Sun-Times
This is a disappointing, misguided movie that has all of the parts in place to be a much better one. - 50
The New York Times
Chaplin is to serious biography, even to Mr. Attenborough's Gandhi, what unfortified cornflakes are to real food. It's slick packaging around what is mostly warm air. - 50
Austin Chronicle
This film wanders and dallies and much of it is fun to watch, but you really know about as much about Chaplin when you leave the theatre as when you enter, and what's missing is the magic. - 50
Chicago Reader
This packaged tour through the great man's career is unenlightening and obfuscating, despite an adept lead performance by Robert Downey Jr. - 50
ReelViews
All-in-all, however, even though Chaplin is fitfully entertaining, it fails to touch enough emotional chords to make it of more than passing interest. - 50
Time Out London
Attenborough's very traditional biopic is a disappointment. Downey has captured the idealism and the melancholy, but not the sentimentality of the comic.