Good things: Beautiful sets, decent songs, ok performances, Higgins is fairly funny, and an easy to follow story.Bad things: WAY too long, useless songs especially from the dad, Audrey Hepburn has one of the worst voices of all time in the fist half of the movie (I know this is on purpose, but my god), and Higgins is a huge ass.My biggest and worst complaint about this fine movie, is that the run time is bloated with useless musical numbers, this is a 1hr 50min movie tops, but because of Bollywood type musical numbers it (like a Bollywood movie) is bloated to 2hrs 50mins. I think it's perfectly fine, but with heavy flaws.

One of the great struggles in theater is emotional truth versus emotional satisfaction. Witness George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, which aimed for a true ending of emancipation but which was turned by various producers and rewriters into something less uncompromising to satisfy the audience's emotional desires.The musical My Fair Lady is Pygmalion with songs. An obnoxious linguist who believes class is not fundamental but is simply a matter of virtue signaling through things like language bets he can pass a flower girl off as a high-born lady. It's a virtuous belief, but the linguist is an obnoxious jerk. But as in the old movie, that jerkiness is sanded smooth with actorly charm. Which is why the ending bugs a lot of people, some of which will advise you to simply stop watching after "Without You," which would result in something close to what Shaw wanted.I don't disagree, and I think Shaw's idea that Charles Laughton would be an ideal Henry Higgins shows you how far afield Broadway and Hollywood have gone.The movie version of the musical also suffers from the casting of Audrey Hepburn. While the play is meant to show that language and a basic knowledge of social niceties is all that separates one class from another, Hepburn goes through a complete character change from feral child to conflicted and elegant lady. From clips I've seen of Broadway originator Julie Andrews singing some of the songs, I suspect she would have done better at making Eliza the same person and keeping the changes to grammatical ones while making Eliza cannier at first and flintier at last.It's also unfortunate that Hepburn's songs were dubbed. Her singing, as heard on youtube, was okay, and while Marni Nixon was the better singer, it seems unfair to insist on perfection from Hepburn while allowing Harrison to talk through his songs.Still, the songs are excellent, catchy and witty, and the production is solid. If you aren't too bothered by terrible people being portrayed as charming and quirky, or by Hepburn's overacting in the early scenes, this is still a lot of fun.Personally, were I to direct this I would have Higgins and Pickering realize they were in love with each other during the play. But that's just me.

On paper, I consider My Fair Lady to be almost without flaw. I've read the play it's based on, and I like this version better. (It's really fanficcy when you think about it. Aren't half of all fanfics meant to pair up characters that didn't end up together in the source material?) I can say with confidence that this is the best adaptation of a musical I've ever seen. Hepburn utterly convinced me she was Eliza. I have no complaints regarding her. Despite the film's length of almost three hours, I find it admirable that they cut nothing from the original libretto. Unfortunately, it is not without flaws. Allow me to list them:-Numerous lip-sync failures. -Obvious sound stages in supposed outdoor locations. -The added scene where the maids forcibly strip and bathe Eliza is highly disturbing.-In Eliza's big telling-Higgins-off song, she. . . waters plants???-Ironically, the actors often talk so quickly it's hard for me to understand them. Especially for the part where Higgins pep-talks Eliza by calling her attractive, the guy playing him should be slow and deliberate so that the scene carries overtones that he is uncomfortable about feeling attraction towards her. Furthermore, in the final scene, Rex Harrison isn't sad enough. All of these are conspicuous problems, but I'd sooner re-watch this than any other movie musical. The story is deeply touching, and the character arcs of the protagonists remind me so much of great writers like Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë. If you're uneasy about possible misogynistic subtext, let me say that Higgins reminds me of multiple romantic leads created by both those women. More to the point, the more imperious he is, the more heartwarming it is when he realizes the error of his ways. That is what makes My Fair Lady so satisfying where Pygmalion wasn't. Still, I'd be open to a remake if only to have a version where no one has 60s hair.

A professor of phonetics, Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) wagers that he can pass cockney street urchin Eliza Doolittle (Audrey Hepburn) off as a sophisticated lady. Higgins is a confirmed bachelor, and misanthropic, especially when it comes to women, and his interest in Eliza is purely professional. However, while she is the one who is supposed to be changing, he seems to be changing too, and falling for Eliza...Wonderful musical. You won't hear me say that often, as I generally dislike musicals. My Fair Lady is different, however. The music blends seamlessly into the dialogue, the music advances the plot, rather than just acts as padding and the music is good, giving the movie a suitable lightness and energy.Good plot too and some great performances from Audrey Hepburn (though that's a given) and Rex Harrison. Won the 1965 Best Picture Oscar.