User Reviews

I've read all the craic on here about how "awful" the movie was. Maybe it really wasn't all the rage according to some people. It's wasn't the normal American movie about football heroes or whatever it is that strikes your fancy.

It's got a tad of truth to it with the presentation of the Talmud only being studied by a Jewish male. Girls weren't permitted to study it unless it was in secrecy.

In a sense it resembles a "Cyrano" scenario. Hadass is not so interested in Avigdor at one point and becomes infatuated by Yentl/Anschel. Avigdor encourages the wedding of Hadass and Anschel because he knows that he will at least be able to see her and be near her as long as he and Anschel are friends. It's strange.

But, Barbra poured a lot of herself into her role and I applaud her for her efforts. The songs, I remember them all, were fitting in the story though many will disagree. It was a good film, I think.

Woman was forbidden to learn and read book in Europe in early 20th century. Clever girl Yentl could not bear it. In fact her father had been teaching secretly her for many years. But she was not satisfied with it because she wanted to learn and discuss with other people in school. After her father died, she decided to find a school to continue studying.

Due to the unreasonable rule, she had to disguise herself as a boy. On the way to school, she knew handsome Avigdor. She successfully enrolled in the school where Avigdor was studying. Step by step she was falling in love with Avigdor. But Avigdor was going to marry a beautiful girl Hadass. After their marriage was cancelers because Hadass's father found that Avigdor's brother was died of committing suicide not pneumonia, Avigdor begged her to marry Hadass for him. Yentl was caught in a dilemma.

It is ridiculous to see that a woman can't learn like a man. People are born equal. If the phenomenon still exists at present day, the civilization is far from satisfaction.

Barbra Streisand revealed her first class singing voice. As to directing, she is not bad too.

A thought provoking musical. 7/10

"Yentl" is a British/American co-production from 1983, so this one is already over 35 years old and here we have the first directorial effort by Oscar-winning actress Barbra Streisand, who was around the age of 40 at that point. More should follow. And she also plays the main character in here. Streisand is also credited as one of two writers who adapted the original story into a screenplay, so it is really her movie, also because she is literally in every scene of this film. Now as for the awards recognition, this is where it gets really interesting. The film won Best Comedy/Musical at the Golden Globes. And Streisand won Best Director too and there were more nominations, for three cast members in total. The Oscars then did not like it as much. No Best Picture nomination, no Best Director nomination, but still a win for the score that was nominated at the Globes too, but did not manage the win. For Legrand and the two Bergmans (not Ingmar and Ingrid), it was the third Oscar win in total and also their final. So sounds all rock-solid when it comes to awards recognition, doesn't it. Well, the movie also got in comfortably at the Razzies, the anti-Oscars, so there was not just love for this film. Not at all. Streisand, Irving and the score were nominated there too, which probably makes it almost as divided as The Shining from three years earlier that was really hated back then, maybe because it was not really too close to the book. But lets not get into detail about that and instead focus on "Yentl".

Overall, I would say it was an okay movie. Streisand is solid overall, even if there were some cringeworthy moments like when somebody says something incorrect and she knows the mistake and corrects it and her face afterwards... tough to stomach. I guess it was an attempt at quirkiness that went really wrong. More flaws out there for sure. I must say the score really sometimes goes too much over the top, especially when it sounds dramatic. One example is when she cuts her hair. There are many others. But also at times in the lighter sequences when the music just tries to be too wild and funny and innocent. Sure it is also good at times, but as much as I love Legrand, I thought his work here is nowhere near Oscar-worthy. As for the songs, it is very difficult to describe them. I think Streisand's singing manages to save them a bit and some are catchy even, but it's difficult to accept them as anything other than guilty pleasure music for the most part. The first, maybe the first two even were decent, but everything that followed afterwards song-wise was not on a high level. And come on, rhyming delicious with dishes? You sure can do better than that. Just one example of general weakness here.

The performances weren't too bad I would say, even if Streisand was not at her best here for sure. I really liked Patinkin though. And as for Irving: Well, tough to judge her performance neutrally here I would say. I think she must be one of the most beautiful women of the 1980s. Seeing her here, she is downright stunning and I think her amazing looks really resulted in perhaps too much attention for her performance, for the positive and negative side both because some mistake her great looks for a great performance, while others automatically say that she is overrated because of her looks and in fact sucks. I think neither is the case. But for me, she sure was among the better components of the film. As for the story, I struggled with it a lot on all kinds of occasions, most of all the romance parts. The fact that (s)he marries his love interest, so they can be together was truly absurd and I also found it unrealistic that she actually falls for Streisand's character at some point, not only because he looked totally different than Patinkin. But maybe that was just me because I always saw Streisand in her character and despite the hair and clothes I never really believed people could really believe she was a man. I don't know. Probably tough to make a judgment this way compared to what I would have thought had I never seen Streisand before. And if we are talking already about recognizing actors/characters, then let me add that I totally did not recognize Patinkin here. Pretty surprised when I read at home it was him.

But the worst and most unrealistic for me about these over 2 hours was when really Patinkin tells Yentl that he loves her too. Now that came out of nowhere. He was full of rage before that and there were zero indicators that he has feelings for her. And then boom all of a sudden, we are supposed to believe it is true love? Like come on. The explanation with him touching her frequently and also that he thought he had sick thoughts because he felt attraction before that were really not good enough to justify such a major plot twist. And not much later, as if nothing happened, he is with Irving's character despite his newly-found interest in Yentl and also Irving's character seemed to have no feelings anymore for Patinkin's as we found out and still these two end up as a couple. I just did not like it a lot what they did with this film towards the end. Streisand on the boat then was still one of the better moments admittedly, but not really because it was too great, just because the film really struggled with realism in the final half hour. Also Yentl fought so long for Avigdor and then, when she can have him, she realizes it's better to give him up right away because of how he sees women, wifes in particular. Really difficult to comprehend too like many other story parts. The way they emphasized Streisand's independence and talk about women being equal, especially in her "wedding night", felt also forced frequently and just for the sake of it. Disappointing. I think that, had this film been handled better script-wise, it could have been a much better outcome. I was ready to give it 3 stars out of 5 (6 out of 10) until almost the very end, but I have to take 1 (2) more away because of Patinkin's complete nonsense love confession. I wonder how this was handled in the original story. I somehow think they did not mess it up this much there and the flaws came mostly with the film adaptation. So, to finish the review on a more positive note, let me say that Streisand's singing was really good and elevated the songs for sure and also again that Amy Irving is really beauty personified. But aside from these pros, the cons are more frequent and more dominant too. Not a quality film. I suggest you skip.

Barbra Streisand's ultimate vanity piece was definitely 1983'sYentl, a drama with music for which Streisand served as executive producer, director, co-screenwriter, and star and began Streisand's penchant for presenting stories and characters with extremely strong feminist leanings, that may have strained the credibility of some of her on screen storytelling, but at this time, Streisand was the only woman in Hollywood with the juice to get a studio to back her personal vision and let her have the creative control she tried to have with A Star is Born but lost to then boyfriend Jon Peters.

Based on a short story called "Yentl, the Yeshiva Boy" by Isaac Bashevis Singer, this is the story of a Jewish girl in Poland named Yentl who is secretly being educated regarding the Talmud by her father, a sort of Jewish version of the bar exam, which, by law during this time, was only to be taught to men. When Yentl's father suddenly dies, she wants to continue her study of the Talmud and decides the only way she can do so is to leave her village, disguise herself as a man and actually gets admitted to a Yeshiva, using her late brother's name, Anshel, to study the Talmud and the Torah and becomes immediately attracted to another student there, a brilliant and sexy scholar named Avigdor (Mandy Patinkin) whose competitive chemistry with Anshel is swift and immediate, but there is something else that pulls him to Anshel that he can't explain and provides awkwardness between the two.

Their relationship is further complicated when Avigdor asks Anshel to look after his fiancée, Hadass (Amy Irving) when her family rejects him as a future husband because they learn his brother committed suicide and Hadass finds herself immediately attracted to Anshel. This convoluted love triangle and the sexist politics of turn of the century Poland are what make up the crux of this story.

Streisand has, of course, brought her own contemporary feminism to this Fiddler on the Roof-type story where long dormant rules and beliefs are challenged and threatened. And since Streisand is the star, she decided to internalize Yentl's dreams and frustrations through the use of the musical score and having Yentl be the only character who sings in the film. Whether this works to the film's credit or detriment is most likely the individual viewer's opinion, but I do think it is odd that Streisand would hire a gifted singer like Mandy Patinkin, who has recorded several albums and won a Tony Award three years prior to this for EVITA, as her leading man and not allow him to sing a note.

Michel Legrand and Marilyn and Alan Bergman have provided some lovely songs for Streisand here, including "The Way He Makes Me Feel", "Papa Can you Hear Me", and another finale that bares way too much of a resemblance to "Don't Rain On My Parade" in Funny Girl called "A Piece of Sky" which finds our heroine, once again, belting out the tune on the deck of a boat.

Streisand the producer and director work very hard to make their star look good here and personally, the film's appeal is dependent on your feelings about the star. Streisand clearly poured a lot of money into the film and it all shows on screen. She won the Golden Globe for Outstanding Direction of a Comedy or Musical but was ignored at Oscar time, though I still scratch my head over the fact that Amy Irving did receive an Oscar nomination for supporting actress for her work as Hadass, a nice performance in a thankless role, but hardly Oscar-worthy. Streisand fans will eat it up, others...be afraid, be very afraid.

A seemingly endless movie that really deserves a zero rating. The premise seems simple enough: Yentl, a girl interested in studying the Talmud, wants to go to school. But only boys are allowed to study, so after her father's death she decides to disguise herself as a boy to get in. She does and becomes close friends with Avigdor, who is to be married to a beautiful woman named Hadass. Hadass' family learns Avigdor's brother committed suicide, and the wedding is called off. Yentl, now calling herself Anschel, is then selected to marry Hadass. She does but it is never consummated. Yentl/Anschel and Avigdor go away for a few days, and Yentl/Anschel reveals her secret to him. The movie ends with Avigdor returning to (and marrying?) Hadass, and Yentl going to America to continue her studies although she will have to continue to do so in disguise.

The plot above seems interesting at first for a movie over 2 hours long, but there are several things that ruin it. For starters, there is the constant SINGING. (I can already hear the critics shouting.) Yes, I know this is a musical so there are supposed to be lots of songs and dance numbers. But the movie could have been improved if it were directed and played without them. The songs become tedious after a while, and there isn't as much dancing as one would expect. Many of the songs are forgettable, with no real memorable lyrics, and those with any significance could easily have been substituted by a voice-over. Only one song stands out from the rest, "Papa Can You Hear Me". It is obvious that most of the others were deliberately placed so Streisand could simply have a reason to show off her vocal abilities every five to ten minutes. Chances are anyone who will see this film will already know what a superb singer and actress she is, so the songs really aren't necessary.

Second, Streisand's makeup, which can be seen during her scenes as a man (the lipstick, enhanced lashes, and traces of blush are all obvious) makes it hard for the audience to believe in the Yentl/Anschel character, that she is actually serious, and fooling her new friends, colleagues, and even Hadass, into believing she is a man. Yet we are asked and expected to believe that very thing. There seems to be a contradiction, as her character talks, or rather sings, of how she doesn't think she can pull it off, but is surprised that everyone seems to be fooled because she is wearing men's clothing. This means that we are then expected to believe the other characters are so naive they can't see the other differences, such as her actions, which are clear giveaways. The facial differences alone cannot be included, as other characters in the film mention that some of their male relatives or friends didn't have a beard or other facial hair. Nevertheless, in the 1900s, if a woman dressed as a man, but wore as much makeup as Streisand's character did, and still tried to pass herself off as a man solely because she wore men's clothing, it would have been deemed unacceptable and caused an outrage. Chances are she would probably be forced to leave the town, or even the country. Therefore the "feminine" makeup on Streisand does not lend to the character's credibility, and only weakens the plot. If it was only applied to make Streisand look more beautiful, it should have been scrapped.

Thirdly, when Yentl/Anschel herself reveals who she truly is toward the end, we are then asked to believe that the other characters are not as smart as Streisand's and only when they learn the "truth" do they become a little wiser. By now it becomes more and more apparent that the whole plot is so far fetched that it is nothing more than a custom-made vehicle for Streisand to fuel.

Lastly, there are those who are fans of Streisand who will find no fault with this film, its plot, or the songs. To those I must respectfully disagree. While she has excellent vocal and acting abilities, I am not a "fan" of her style of singing. However, I have enjoyed many of her other features including musicals. There are even some songs of hers that I like, so I am not a "hater" nor have set out to bash her. I have written this review from an honest perspective, from someone who has tried their best to watch this movie - several times even - and has noted the problems within. If Streisand was interested in creating a great or even believable film, she could have done so here by not injecting her need to show off and prove how talented, beautiful and smart she is at nearly every turn. This movie does nothing more than hurt her abilities, make her appear self-absorbed, and thus turn the film into a laugh-fest unworthy of her fans or audience.