One Paragraph Movie Review: Foolish Wives

One hundred and fifty-fifth film: Foolish Wives, a silent movie from 1922 that has everything you’d hope for from a silent movie: a villain with a monocle, a casino in Monte Carlo, women in flapper dresses whose hair looks like clay, and terrible lip-synching. I watched this for over two hours to a clattering piano soundtrack, and I was absolutely fine with it. Not only was I gripped by the story — a trio of con artists pretending to be Russian aristocracy fleecing Americans and rooting their way around Monaco (heavily implied), I also quite honestly said “gracious, what a scoundrel” out loud during it. I mean I wouldn’t watch it again — it’s still a long, slow movie with drawn-on eyebrows — but it wasn’t anywhere near the waste of valuable coronavirus isolation entertainment time I was expecting. Two and a half foot-long cigarettes out of five.