I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

There's a genre I like to call "little English comedy" that really traces its roots back to the Ealing studios in the late 40s. The movies didn't have high budgets (they couldn't afford them), but frequently had clever scripts that made them eminently watchable (Alec Guiness got his start there in movies like The Man in the White Suite and The Horse's Mouth).The Object of Beauty fits this category nicely. It's a little puzzling that it didn't do better, actually, with two American leads and rave reviews from Siskel and Ebert. Their review, in fact, is the only reason I happened to be on the lookout for this one.It's an elegant, witty comedy of manners. It's carefully, quietly scripted, and rather subtle. Totally worth seeking out.

John Malkovich and Andy McDowell star in "The Object of Beauty," a 1991 film directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg.Malkovich and McDowell play Jake and Tina, an unmarried couple (she's getting a divorce) who love to travel, stay in beautiful hotels, call room service, and go to lovely restaurants. Just one problem: Jake is in commodities and the cocoa shipment he's heavily invested in is being held up, and he's broke. The hotel wants their money. His credit card is declined at dinner. He is able to give the restaurant a check, but if the bank refuses to pay the check, it will bounce.Jake eyes one of Tina's gifts from her husband (Peter Riegert), a small Henry Moore statue, worth a fortune. She won't agree to let him sell it. Finally she suggests that if it were stolen, they could collect on the insurance. She asks a good friend Joan (Lolita Davidovich) to keep the statue for her should she ask her to do so. Joan agrees.When the statue appears to be missing, Jake thinks Tina took it. But Tina didn't. It appears that the statute was actually stolen. The hotel and insurance company start an investigation, and, seeing Jake's financial problems, don't really believe him.Amusing comedy fueled by a wonderful performance from John Malkovich, who is very funny, especially when he's lying on a bed composing his own obituary, and during a phone call to his parents where he wants to borrow money but ends up not asking for any. Andie McDowall is sweet and beautiful as Tina, who wants to be taken care of but realizes she's in the relationship for more than that.Very charming and stylish comedy, not a laugh out loud one, but a sophisticated one that has some warmth underneath it.

The object in question is a pint-sized Henry Moore statuette, owned by shallow sophisticate Andie McDowell and appraised at $35,000, an amount in many ways even more beautiful to its owner than the item itself. Especially when McDowell and her 'husband' (played to haughty perfection by John Malkovich) find themselves at a fiscal disadvantage while living beyond their means in a posh London hotel. In the vernacular of the upwardly mobile, they aren't 'fluid', and when the statuette disappears they immediately accuse each other of plotting to collect the insurance value. The film is an underhanded, cynical, satirical poke at American materialism, pointless in the end because nothing is resolved. But the plot itself is secondary to the characters (ugly though they are), and rarely have two actors been better suited to their roles: McDowell's poor little rich girl routine is by now second nature, and Malkovich captures all the self-absorbed boredom of the ersatz upper class with his languid voice and steady reptilian gaze.

It is difficult for me to comprehend why there is only one viewer comment for this film, or why it is rated under a six. If an excellent film is about entertainment, intelligence, great acting and a terrific story with a treasury of clever humor that expounds the deeper meaning of a good relationship between a man and a woman over wealth and selfishly egotistical success, then this is a standout film that achieves a richness of artistic accomplishment that very few films do. No one truly sees the beauty of the bronze statue except the lowly and weathered housekeeper, a financially struggling mute, unable to express the profound feelings that are moving within her in words, but Rudi Davies sure gets it across with her expression and eyes. I had to drive 30 miles to the Cedar Lee Theater, Cleveland's only real art house, during it's original release, but after the film was over I realized it would have been worthwhile if I would have had to walk...some films are just that special