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Sunset Boulevard Movie Review

Sunset Boulevard is a 1950 black comedy noir film directed by Billy Wilder and starring William Holden and Gloria Swanson. It’s one of the greatest films of all time and the ultimate movie about Hollywood.

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“I am big. It’s the pictures that got small“

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A screenwriter develops a dangerous relationship with a faded film star determined to make a triumphant return. There have been numerous inside baseball films about Hollywood throughout the decades, but none managed to capture audiences quite like this masterpiece. Billy Wilder is probably the greatest filmmaker of all time and this movie shows why he is so well regarded to this day – it is timeless, impressively relevant and wholly engaging from start to finish. It has aged like fine wine and this is in no small part thanks to Wilder’s effortlessly modern directing style. This is one of his best and most accomplished filmmaking feats.

Sunset Boulevard has noir elements (a murder and narration that leads up to that murder), but it’s also a heartbreaking drama featuring three unspeakably tragic characters. Above all else, I would call this picture a black comedy as Norma’s over-the-top demeanor produced numerous laughs in me throughout the first half in particular. This is the major strength of this film – its tonal versatility and unexpected nature.

Hollywood has always been a business that treated its older stars horribly. Once you become old, especially if you are a woman, you get discarded and forgotten about no matter how popular and renowned you once were. Norma’s story is representative of so many older actresses who had to contend with very minor roles or no roles at all after they reached a certain age and/or after movies transitioned from silents to talkies. The movie countered ageism exceptionally well, but it also dealt with the dangers of greed and chasing fame, which has only become worse for Hollywood actors afterward. There is also very much the exploration of delusion versus reality, which leads to Norma’s descent into madness. By depicting her loneliness and fear of being forgotten, the movie became this immensely tragic and very human take on existentialist dread and the inevitability of the passage of time.

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This is technically a masterfully produced film, but it is the acting that elevated it to even greater heights. You cannot find better casting than what they did for this film. In a truly brilliant turn, almost every actor plays themselves effectively so. You’ve got Cecil B. DeMille in a smaller, but effective cameo. You’ve also got Erich von Stroheim as the most tragic character in the film – Max the butler. His story is revealed to be brutally dark and disturbing, which did fit the real life of Stroheim as a renowned director who afterward became just a supporting actor. I did like Nancy Olson quite a bit as well, though her character is the most tangential one in the film, but she imbued Betty with a lot of humanity and warmth.

But then of course you have Gloria Swanson, impressing us all in what is her career-best turn. This was the most brilliant casting choice as Swanson was a huge star back in the late 1910s and throughout the 1920s and she did star in DeMille’s films for real. Not only did she disappear after the talkies took over, but she also never got another big role after this picture, which just proved the point of the film brutally so. Swanson is incredible here, delivering in both drama and comedy. She is somebody who we both laugh at and empathize with as this delusional woman who cannot cope with the realities of the present. She managed to make Norma over-the-top and theatrical, pretty much creating a world for her own, but still retaining a bit of normalcy. But eventually she becomes genuinely insane in that unforgettable final sequence and she was so believable throughout it all.

William Holden himself was terrific too. Joe Gillis is a very unlikable guy and I actually found him to be more of an antagonist than a protagonist. You cannot really root for him, even though he is a tragic figure too, but he has always had that greed and selfishness in him. He was eventually monstrous toward Norma in that very sad and climactic confrontation. Holden was charismatic and effective in a well written role while also making for a fantastic narrator. The narration in this movie is truly fabulous and that is coming from a guy who usually doesn’t care for this storytelling device.

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Sunset Boulevard also benefits from superb cinematography and that noirish look and atmosphere to the film that is delicious. The score is fantastic too and suitably intense. The production design is mesmerizing – the dilapidated mansion and an old lady living in it is an obvious nod to ‘Great Expectations’, which is something that even the protagonist acknowledges. The movie is exceptionally well edited and paced – the structure is great and it flies by how engaging it is. The dialogue is unforgettable with two sequences both starring Norma that are iconic to this day. The movie was nominated for a bunch of Oscars, but it ended up losing all of the major awards to ‘All About Eve’, which was a case of terrible luck.