Pavarotti

10/20/2019

‘Pavarotti’ isn't a bad film, it just isn’t a particularly noteworthy one. The only real impression we get about Pavarotti is that he was a truly great opera singer and he was beloved by his peers, family and fans, but I doubt anyone going into this film didn’t know that already. It plays like an artist bio mixed with a best-of album, its perfunctory nature all the more disappointing considering how other filmmakers have begun to subvert and develop the biographical documentary form. Maybe if Ron Howard had been less in love with his subject and more willing to ask genuine questions of the man and the world he came from, this could have been a genuinely engaging and insightful film. As it is, it offers nothing new and leaves almost no impression, thoroughly unlike its legendary subject. -