Directed by Stanley Donen, Funny Face (1957) is the film that lets Audrey Hepburn dance, sing and be gloriously herself. She plays Jo Stockton, a shy bookshop clerk in Greenwich Village who is swept up when fashion photographer Dick Avery, played by Fred Astaire, and magazine editor Maggie Prescott, played by Kay Thompson, decide that her thoughtful, unconventional face is exactly what their magazine needs.
Whisked to Paris for a fashion shoot, Jo falls for the city and for a philosopher she meets there, while Dick watches with growing affection. The plot is a confection, but Hepburn carries it with lightness and sincerity, and her numbers with Astaire, set to songs by George and Ira Gershwin, are among the pleasures of the film. She dances with a joy that feels entirely her own, and Astaire, her partner, gives her room to shine.
Funny Face arrived at a moment when Hepburn was already a star, and it showed a different side of her screen presence. After the drama of The Nun’s Story and the romance of Sabrina, here she was in a musical comedy, elegant in Givenchy, funny, and unafraid to look a little awkward before she blossoms. The Paris locations and the colour photography make it one of the most beautiful films of its decade.
What stays with audiences is Hepburn herself. Jo Stockton begins the film hiding behind books and ends it dancing in the open, and Hepburn makes that journey feel both fanciful and true. Funny Face is a reminder that, for all her grace, she was also a gifted comic actress and a dancer of real charm.
Image: Audrey Hepburn, 1956. Wikimedia Commons, public domain: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Audrey_Hepburn_1956_(2).jpg