Irma La Douce is one of those weird movies where we find ourselves in France, but everyone is speaking English, and our leads are even doing it with no accent whatsoever. It's not annoying, but it does feel weird, particularly since there isn't a ton about this movie that is particularly French. The same movie could almost have been made unchanged if it was set in the United States, but c'est la vie. I like Jack Lemmon in the lead role and he really gets to stretch his comedic muscles. It's almost like he plays 3 different characters throughout the movie. Shirley MacLaine is just fine in the other lead performance, although she sometimes comes across as downright bored with her job as a prostitute, which is a bit odd. But both of them have excellent comedic timing, so most of the humorous scenes are solid.
The biggest flaw in Irma La Douce is its length. You feel every minute of the 2.5 hours, and it is definitely a film that could be trimmed down considerably. The entire first act feels like a different movie, and most of it is superfluous. It establishes the characters and gives a reason why they are in the situation we find in the second and third acts, but I think there were ways that they could have set things up faster. The real humor in this film is in the elaborate con job and all the wackiness that results from it. It's utterly ridiculous, and doesn't make a ton of sense, but with this kind of wacky comedy you have to give a larger suspension of disbelief. I had a few good chuckles, but Irma La Douce just didn't deliver as well as I wanted. Even if they did shorten up the runtime, I'm not 100% sure it would be a big winner.
The biggest flaw in Irma La Douce is its length. You feel every minute of the 2.5 hours, and it is definitely a film that could be trimmed down considerably. The entire first act feels like a different movie, and most of it is superfluous. It establishes the characters and gives a reason why they are in the situation we find in the second and third acts, but I think there were ways that they could have set things up faster. The real humor in this film is in the elaborate con job and all the wackiness that results from it. It's utterly ridiculous, and doesn't make a ton of sense, but with this kind of wacky comedy you have to give a larger suspension of disbelief. I had a few good chuckles, but Irma La Douce just didn't deliver as well as I wanted. Even if they did shorten up the runtime, I'm not 100% sure it would be a big winner.