3.5 out of 5 stars

Guys really won’t want to like Alfie – but they will.

He’s everything guys hate in each other; he’s the guy you worry is sleeping with your girlfriend, the friend you have trouble trusting, the coworker you worry has a hidden agenda.

But try as guys might to hate him, the title character in ‘Alfie’ is, undoubtedly, likable. He’s charismatic, funny and so fixated on his goal of bedding the best ladies New York City has to offer that the men who will watch him will, at least on some level, relate to him.

Girls really won’t want to like Alfie – but they will as well.

Yes, he’s a player. Yes, he’s a womanizer. Yes, he has commitment issues. But he’s darn good-looking, incredibly charming and, albeit in an odd way, caring.

Perhaps that’s the charm of this film (other than, for the guys, the awesome gratuitous boobie shots, of which there are quite a few); the audience follows this enjoyable young buck on his trials and tribulations with the women of New York, knowing that they shouldn’t care about him, let alone actually like him.

As he questions whether or not he is ready for a relationship – and comes to his conclusions over the course of brief soliloquies with the audience – the viewers sit back and enjoy his misguided beliefs, knowing, almost always, that the decisions he’s making are the wrong ones. And the audience knows it enjoys watching him fail, and it’ll enjoy watching him put in a concerted effort to fix the situation (again, almost inevitably, incorrectly). In many ways, Alfie is a lovable loser. What makes him such an interesting character, though, is that he has no idea that this is the case. Jude Law, who plays the title character, does a great job of having his character walk this line – even if it’s a character that audiences will think they’ve seen from him before.

In many ways, this film bears a striking resemblance to ‘High Fidelity,’ a movie starring John Cusack that covers relationships from a male perspective, with a direct path to the character’s mindset through his to-the-camera confessions. Where ‘Alfie’ differs is in the fact that Law’s character is not the everyman that Cusack’s was. Audiences pulled for Cusack and knew what they wanted to happen for him. With Alfie, they live vicariously through him, not sure how they want the movie to end.

Due to this feeling, when the end does come, it’s hard for the audiences not to want more. It’s tough to say whether this is because the movie has done a good job with getting audiences to enjoy the movie, or because the film’s feeling of uncertainty is carried over. Audiences will want to think the movie’s good, though, because Alfie’s character is so frustratingly likable and well-developed.

At one point, early on in the movie, Alfie, while having sex, looks at the camera and tells audiences that the girl he is with is a good lay. He gives her his highest rating: an A-minus. ‘Alfie’ isn’t deserving of the highest rating – or even an A-minus – but it comes pretty close.

Published on November 4, 2004 at 12:00 pm