Singin’ in the Rain

Change: it can work for you or against you, as this film, which heralded the rebirth of the musical in the early 1950s, exuberantly demonstrates. Gene Kelly is brilliant as the silent star who connives to pull his pathetic partner, Jean Hagen, into the world of sound by sidestepping the talkies altogether and inventing the musical, where Debbie Reynolds can do the singing offscreen. This vastly entertaining film has many layers of reality, but like the proverbial onion, it has no center: its business is exposing the conventions of the cinema, where even “real” characters are not real.