4/10
Silly, self-indulgent portrait of a great designer
23 January 2025
If Orry-Kelly was such a great designer (and he was), why did the director of this silly movie not show him some respect? Instead she uses his life as a washing line on which to hang a row of coy, childish conceits. We are told that Orry-Kelly was someone who would take a secret to the grave. Not a statement that needs explanation, is it? But it is illustrated by putting him in a coffin, with lipstick-red tape over his mouth, that is carried by several stone-faced models in evening dress. It's as if a child were given the task of making a picture out of a sentence.

Other nonsense includes a very unprepossessing young man playing the part of the designer, and spending a lot of his time rowing a boat--not, I think, the way Orry-Kelly left his native Australia. The director also seems more excited by the fact that Orry-Kelly was gay than by his superb designing skills, spending a lot of time with such unsavoury people as Scott Bowers, the author of a disgusting book about famous people he supposedly performed with (not in the films).

The whole thing is an exercise in self-indulgence, with feeble wackiness masquerading as creativity.
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