The Man Who Played God

Directed by John G. Adolfi, The Man Who Played God follows a famed pianist (George Arliss’ Montgomery Royle) as he loses his hearing and eventually learns to lip read. Filmmaker Adolfi, armed with a script by Julien Josephson and Maude T. Howell, delivers an almost astonishingly sluggish and tiresome effort that boasts few appealing, ingratiating qualities, and it’s clear, certainly, that the picture’s arms-length atmosphere is compounded by Arliss’ grating performance and an egregiously deliberate pace – with, in terms of the latter, the narrative often feeling as though it’s unfolding in slow motion. (The bulk of the movie’s first half, for example, revolves around Montgomery’s encounters with various friends and family members.) And while there are admittedly a small handful of effective (and affecting) scenes sprinkled throughout (eg Montgomery helps out a couple in need of money), The Man Who Played God, by and large, feels so much longer than its 80 minute running time.

*1/2 out of ****