Mostly, didn't deliver...or did it?

I first watched this film shortly after its release and I did enjoy it, although I didn't know much about Charlie Chaplin, except some issue of his being with an underage woman. I never considered Downey much of an actor until seeing this film, and I thought he did a great job.

Since then, I have seen all the major feature-length Chaplin films and absolutely love his work. So with that under my belt, I decided to re-watch "Chaplin." I was somewhat disappointed, because I didn't learn very much about his work from this film. It seemed to focus primarily on his personal life with bits of pieces of his work sprinkled throughout. I could say that I didn't learn any more about Chaplin, the film-maker from this movie, but that wouldn't be entirely true. I know now that he was fully aware of his genius, he was a perfectionist, he went into sound films kicking and screaming, composing the music for his films probably took him just as long as making the film itself, and his marriages probably failed due to the neglect of his wives caused by his obsession with his work.

So, on second thought, maybe the lessons learned from this film are really quite enough for one film. So to paraphrase something Chaplin's character said in the film, 'you get to know me by knowing my work.' I certainly know his work since first seeing this film and now after having seen it again, I know a bit more about how the work affected his personal life.