Disclaimer: the following scenes may be difficult for some viewers. Common side affects include migraine, nausea, vomiting, an increase in bowel movements and an inability to control them.
Just in case people, for some strange and incomprehensible reason, take issue with the validity of this movie, a paragraph tells us that the dramatization is based on published accounts. Is it published somewhere that, with excessive amounts of make-up and a dinner reducer, Jennifer Love Hewitt should be the one and only to play Hepburn?
A harmonica whines "Moon River" as a taxi stops in front of a building. How vain is it that "Jennifer Love Hewitt" appears in large letters in the credits before the title, "The Audrey Hepburn Story," is displayed? Inside the cab, we see a vaguely familiar make-up job with dark glasses and a tiara. The cabbie, who has played gangsters in many a movie, turns around and asks gently, "How're you doing back there?" Hepwitt (the recent weather reports haven't mentioned anything about an untimely frost in Hell, so there's no way I'm calling her "Audrey") removes her glasses and simpers at the cabbie: "I'm scahed, if you want the twuth." Hearing her accent, I actually screamed and scared my cats so badly that they dropped about two pounds of fur each. Right there on the floor. Scream and WHUMP! Four pounds of fur on the floor. As if I didn't have it hammered into my skull already, I knew with that huskified-not-British-British accent that this movie was dead on arrival. In fact, it sounded so weird, I thought it was dubbed. The cabbie makes some noises about believing in yourself. The soggy symbolism of the whole conversation, in conjunction with Hewitt's real-life fears about playing the role of Hepburn, sent so many anvils raining into my living room, I'm thinking buying a set of calipers and changing my career to Village Smithy. Unfortunately, the cabbie encourages Hepwitt to get out of the cab and play her part. Hepwitt gets out of the cab and we see "Tiffany & Co" emblazoned on the building. She walks up to a window and gives the jewelry display a blank look as she pulls a pastry out of a bag. Suddenly, Hepwitt starts hacking and coughing on the powdered sugar she inhaled off of the pastry. A director yells, "Cut!" and Hepwitt starts to whine, "Blake, dahling, look what I've done!" indicating her black dress, which looks powder-free to me. If you really stretch your imagination (something which I found myself doing a lot of in this movie) and squint through your left eye, you might see that "Blake, dahling" is supposed to be Blake Edwards, the director of Breakfast at Tiffany's. Okay, I said "might." Hepwitt acts petulant and asks for an ice cream cone to eat instead of a pastry. Blake tells her that no one eats ice cream for breakfast ("Oh, weel, I dew," husks Hepwitt) and that he'll get her an unsugared pastry instead. The guy playing Truman Capote looks more like the age of the kid who played him in To Kill a Mockingbird, but at least he got Capote's weird voice almost right. Capote turns to a production assistant and creels, "See why I didn' wan Hepbuhn for this? She can' eat, that's why. Mare'lyn Monroe's who I wanned. Mare'lyn Monroe knows how to eat." The assistant says that Hepwitt is the nicest person he's ever worked with in his whole life, and Capote responds to this hyperbole with, "I don' wriiite niiice." Hepwitt complains to the make-up lady that Capote doesn't like her, and the make-up lady tells her Capote doesn't like anyone. Hepwitt says she loves his books and she's going to try and make him smile. The make-up lady tells her they'll give her a standing ovation if she succeeds. Hepwitt sucks in her cheeks and talks through pursed lips, "Weel, then it's a bit." (Loosely translated: "bet.") A stagehand calls for places and Hepwitt gets back into the cab as "Co-Executive Producer: Jennifer Love Hewitt" flashes in the credits. Hepwitt stares at the crowd screaming her name.
Marlene Dietrich is crooning "Lili Marlane" in the background, and Young Audrey is hiding under a table eating sweets as her mother, played by Frances Fisher, calls for her. Here's a factual note: Audrey was born with the name "Edda" -- I don't think Ma Hepburn would be calling her daughter by her stage name when she was five. Young Audrey's father walks in and insults the mother by telling her that she shouldn't be eating sweets, and that if she doesn't care about her appearance, she should at least care about the example she is setting for their daughter. The parents move to another room as her mother accuses her husband of spending more time with his secretary than with his family. There's a bang in the living room as Young Audrey knocks over the sugar bowl. As Ma Hepburn starts to scold her, Pa Hepburn says, "This is no place for us," and takes her away. Jerk. In a park, live music plays in a gazebo and couples dance on the green. Young Audrey is bored on her bench, so she wanders over to where her father is having a close discussion with a slim young blonde woman who hands him a Nazi pamphlet. Pa Hepburn catches sight of his diminutive daughter and walks over to her. He apologizes and tells her he had "bank business" (oh, was that what the kids called it back in '35?). Young Audrey asks him to dance with her, so they do. Back at the Hepburn ranch, Pa tells the family that he's going to London and Ma gets hysterical. She accuses him of being a Nazi sympathizer, and tells him he's always involved on the "wrong side." Pa packs as his wife begs him not to leave them. Pa leaves without hugging his child goodbye. Young Audrey runs after him calling, "Fa-tha! Please don't leave us Fa-tha!" The cold-hearted wretch doesn't even look back.
Back to the relative present. Hepwitt is staring off into the distance at this memory, and the make-up woman dabs a tear away. The stagehand reminds her to take her place. Arms linked, Hepwitt takes a stroll with her cabbie friend and asks about his daughter, on whom the cabbie obviously dotes. Continuity issue: Hepwitt was about to step into the cab when she had her acid flashback and now she's walking down the set to get to it. The cabbie tells Hepwitt that his daughter told him when she grows up, she wants to be just like Hepwitt. Hepwitt exhales and says, "Oooh, just don't let her grow up to be as nehvous as I am." I've noticed that Jennifer Love affects a lot of odd head bobbing and chin tucking in her effort to imitate Hepburn.
Young Audrey has grown into Teen Audrey, who is sitting on the floor of her bedroom pouting about being send to boarding school in England. Where Young Audrey actually bore some resemblances to Hepburn, Teen Audrey looks more like a Teen Hewitt. Her Muppet-mouthed Audrey accent is just as horribly over-pronounced and, like Hewitt, she always sounds like she's sucking in her breath when she talks. She's also dressed like Leslie Caron in Gigi, which I guess is supposed to be some sort of foreshadowing. Teen Audrey pouts about not being able to live in London with "Fa-tha," who, we are told by Ma Hepburn, hasn't bothered to contact his daughter in five years. Ma Hepburn holds her tongue admirably as Teen Hepburn whines about her mother not being able to tell her father that she would be in England because Ma Hepburn doesn't even know where he is. The last bit Teen Hepburn says in very accusing tones. Like a good mother, Ma Hepburn tells her daughter that Pa Hepburn's silence has nothing to do with her. Upon arriving at the boarding school, Ma Hepburn explains to her daughter that they don't have enough money to allow her to visit Teen Audrey on holidays, but assures her that she'll be invited to stay with school friends. The officious headmistress greets them and brings Teen Audrey in "to get settled." Teen Audrey meets her blonde roommate, Klara, who is on her way to dance class. Klara asks if Teen Audrey is a dancer. "I'm not anything that I know of," Teen Audrey says pitifully. After visiting the dance class, Teen Audrey is entranced by the idea of studying dance. In the scene, Teen Audrey is suited up in a pink leotard and tights like the rest of the students in the class and is practicing plis. In between dance class montages, Teen Audrey attempts to get her father on the phone but is unsuccessful. At one point, she calls when her father is at home, but he won't come to the phone. Later, in their room, Klara tells Audrey that she wishes her own parents would disappear so they wouldn't always complain and tell her how "unacceptable" she is. Teen Audrey says that her mother doesn't do that, but tells her she can be anything she wants. Well, goody for you. Klara, on the other hand, says she would like to keep her parents in a glass case "like in a wax museum, all dressed up to go out but never actually going anywhere again." How macabre. The girls lie in bed and talk about what they will do when they are married with children and what they want their husbands to look like. Looking "marvelous in a tuxedo." What twaddle! Europeans, and especially the British, do not say "tuxedo." In fact they scoff heartily at that word. If she were truly European, or if the writers had done any amount of research, she would have said "dinner jacket" or "DJ."
During one dance class, Teen Audrey is given high praise by her instructor just before the headmistress calls her out of class to tell her that she has to go home. England and France have declared war on Germany, and her mother and uncle want her at home in Holland. Teen Audrey balks at the idea and asks if she wouldn't be safer in England. The headmistress reads a portion of her mother's letter which says that Holland is neutral (and weak, and small, and totally unable to protect itself) and that her mother's cousin is a cabinet minister who assures them that Holland will not enter the war. Teen Audrey forgets about war when she hears that her father will meet her in London in order to get her onto the plane to Holland. At the airport, the headmistress tells her it's important for her to continue her dancing. Teen Audrey doesn't hear her as she spies her father and runs to him. Her father comments that he didn't realize how long it had been since he last saw her. Audrey asks why he didn't visit her at school, but he can't seem to answer that. At the gate, Pa Hepburn's papers are examined, and he's told he will need to be questioned (cough, Nazi!, cough), but his daughter can go through. Teen Hepburn cries as the officials detain her father and she is forced to go to her plane.
The Audrey Hepburn Story
Back to the relative present. Cue harmonica music as the cab rolls down the street for another take. Just before stepping out of the cab, Hepwitt purses her lips, slides her dark glasses down her nose and says, "I'll get you, Mr. Frown-All-the-Time." I don't think I can do justice to how terribly that line came out. You had to have seen it to really feel the nausea. Hepwitt walks up to the window again and takes a BIG bite of her sugarless pastry as Capote looks on skeptically. Hepwitt walks away from the window and Blake Edwards yells, "Cut! Print it!" The set cheers and Hepwitt does a happy shoulder shrug and thanks everyone around her. When she looks over, Capote has vacated the premises. Hepwitt is despondent. "Wheah is he?" she pouts. Someone asks to whom she is referring, and she responds, "Truman Capote uv gorse!" Hepwitt's accent is getting more guttural with each line. She must be anticipating the upcoming flashback to the German occupation of Holland.
Teen Audrey stares out the window at Nazi trucks while a radio announcer reports that the Nazis have invaded Holland and taken the whole country captive. Teen Audrey flops in a chair and says to her mother accusingly, "You said Germany'd never invade Holland," and then asks petulantly about her dancing lessons. Ma Hepburn tells her daughter and Unc Hepburn that they will have to live quietly and obey the Germans "until they feel they are in control." Meanwhile, Teen Audrey attends her dance class, looking so sickly that we have to imagine she is already beginning to suffer from the colitis that would keep her skinny for the rest of her life and eventually manifest itself as the colon cancer that killed her. In the dance class, Teen Audrey gives her sweater to Hannah, a shivering dance classmate. Later scenes show Unc Hepburn organizing underground action against the Germans, and Audrey witnessing her dance classmate, Hannah, and Hannah's mother being taken away by the Nazis. They are wearing yellow Jewish Stars on their coats. Teen Audrey arrives home to find her mother crying and asks, "Is it Fa-tha?" Her mother tells her that a train carrying German soldiers was blown up and her Uncle was suspected to be involved. He was arrested along with other members of the resistance and shot.
Ma Hepburn now attends the underground meetings in place of her brother. Teen Audrey listens at the door and volunteers herself as a messenger. "Lili Marlene" again plays as Teen Audrey delivers her messages for the resistance. One job has her deliver a message to a British flyboy in the woods. She completes this and returns to get her bicycle, but runs into Nazis who question her. She tells them she was meeting her boyfriend in the woods but he didn't show up. She bursts into tears and says, "He doesn't love me." And then she offers her daisies to one of the Nazis and tells him to give them to his girlfriend. Other Nazis drag an old man -- who had been receiving Audrey's resistance messages -- out of his house. Teen Audrey runs and hides in a shack and sees the Nazis shoot the old man. Because the Germans don't leave, Teen Audrey stays hidden in the shack for the night. Meanwhile, Ma Hepburn is going crazy waiting for her daughter. Finally, Teen Audrey makes it home on foot and faints from fever in her mother's arms. scene. The Germans have retreated from Holland's border, and Ma Hepburn takes her daughter outside to see the British and American troops coming through the city. Big Band music plays, and I'll admit to getting a lump in my throat at this point. A soldier offers Teen Audrey chocolate, which she eats and then throws up ["thus making a meta-statement about this entire movie" -- Sars]. A doctor examines her and tells Ma Hepburn that her daughter has anemia, asthma, and acute colitis, and needs penicillin immediately. Ma Hepburn frets about getting it sent from Amsterdam, and the doctor says they can't wait for that.
The Audrey Hepburn Story
This situation isn't resolved as we flash forward to Hepwitt in her Tiffany's garb. During a break, Hepwitt, dressed in black capri pants with a kerchief on her head, serenades Blake Edwards with Jennifer Love Hewitt's raspy version of "Moon River." I'll give her a moon! Tell me, is there blood coming out of my ears yet? Two movie guys snack at a buffet table, and one comments he's never seen so much chocolate. The other explains that Audrey buys it all for the crew, insisting that you can never have too much chocolate. Capote butts his head in and twangs, "What are we shootin' ?" Movie Guy 2 answers, "Her song on the balcony." "D'you b'leeve this? They gave her a damn song! Call girls don' sing!" Movie Guy 2 says that Audrey doesn't seem like a call girl to him. "She wuz in my book!" Capote insists. I think the actor playing Capote decided to mimic Dana Carvey's "Church Lady" in order to get Capote's Mississippi accent right. The movie guys roll their eyes and walk away. Somehow I don't believe two movie nobodies would treat Truman Capote so dismissively. ["Well, that's provided you believe that Capote was sober enough to turn up on set every day in the first place." -- Sars] Hepwitt finishes her weak warbling and leans forward to Blake Edwards: "Ah you sure you want me to sing?" she asks. Blake says of course he is and asks if she would, and Hepwitt says, "Hmmm, I s'pooze so. Aftah all, I didn't know how to doo half the things I did in my life."
Hepwitt is now playing the grown-up Hepburn at a dance tryout. Busty and dressed in a black leotard, Hepwitt stretches at the barre. A woman, who is supposed to be a young Kay Kendall but looks nothing like her, introduces herself and asks Hepwitt to join her after the audition for coffee. Hepwitt tells Kay about her mother getting cigarettes from English soldiers and then trading them on the black market in order to get her penicillin. Hepwitt goes on to say that her mother sacrificed so much in order to get her daughter to London to study dance. Kay tells her she can earn quick money doing revues and nightclub work. Hepwitt says she doesn't want to dance in musicals, and wouldn't know how even if she tried. Kay is skeptical about Hepwitt's desire to be a prima ballerina. Hepwitt moons about wanting to find her father in England. Kay tells Hepwitt she's the biggest dreamer she ever met, and says she needs a boyfriend. Hepwitt attempts to look modest. The second day of the dance audition is over, and Madame Instructor comes over to help Hepwitt at the barre. Hepwitt admits that she lost precious time not dancing during the war, and Madame asks if she would give everything up for dance. Hepwitt waxes enthusiastic in her love for dance, blah, blah, blah. Madame decides to give her a chance -- otherwise the war would have triumphed over the dancer. The truth is, Hepwitt's dinners are too big for a dancer, no matter how hard she tries to smoosh them into a leotard, but Madame doesn't know how to tell her that. Dance montage in which, I am convinced, Hepwitt is not one of the dancers. Hepwitt confesses doubts to her mother about her talent as a dancer. Her mother tells her she can always find something else to do, but Hepwitt whines that she's only happy when she's dancing. Ma Hepburn gives her good advice about life having other plans sometimes and one should be flexible. Ma Hepburn cites her own life: she was once a baroness and now she's a restaurant hostess. Yeah, quit your grousing, Hepwitt! In the scene, Hepwitt practices gracelessly at the barre and Madame comes in to tell her (and her cleavage) that she has neither the stature nor the talent to become a prima ballerina. Hepwitt says, "I see," between clenched lips, minces forward and kisses Madame on both cheeks, and thanks her for allowing her to study under her tutelage and for being truthful. Madame leaves, and Hepwitt drips tears onto her capacious dinners.