Browsing: David Frankel

Reviews one_chance_2013_4
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There’s a fundamental foulness to the Paul Potts success story as engineered by the editorial sensibilities of Britain’s Got Talent. Like Susan Boyle after him, the populist power of Potts’ victory in the TV talent contest comes courtesy of the middle-class meanness that’s manifest in the show; one need only see the sweeping crane shots and hear the orchestral swells that accompanied his audition to appreciate the queasy air of ennobling: oh how nice, that a phone salesman with wonky teeth can actually have talent. Those four minutes—essentially the source of One Chance, and the moment to which the movie builds—are hideously hinged on the novelty idea of an “unattractive” man, against all odds, actually having worth.