Silence of the Lambs (1991) review

(contains spoilers)

This is about as perfect as a film gets. All the elements are here: a smart heroine, a charming psychopathic anti-hero and a bizarre villain. It's a horror film but also a police procedural and drama with some elements of comedy. The real power of the film is how there are two bad guys but in the end the audience is cheering for one of them. That's not easy to do considering how evil and fucked up Hannibal Lecter is.

A lot of praise has been given to Anthony Hopkins, which he earned, but I feel like Ted Levine deserves more appreciation. His acting is never dialed to 11 like Anthony Hopkins. In certain scenes I feel like Hopkins is hamming it up.

The fact that Hopkins is only in about 25 minutes of the 1 hour and 58 film is good because it means that all the focus is not on him and he doesn't have to carry the film. I like how the story expertly weaves two separate stories together: Buffalo Bill and Hannibal Lecter. I feel like the movie would suffer in quality if Lecter were in most of it.

Clarice is the glue that holds together the structure and having a high caliber actress like Jodie Foster makes it work. Her performance is understated. She strong but it's never in a forced manner. She's smart but not annoyingly smart. There's something very human about her and the way the story ties together her memory of lambs being slaughtered with the climactic basement scene is brilliant.

The camera is position so that the audience sees things from Clarice's perspective. Lecter and Buffalo Bill will look straight in to the camera but Clarice does not.

I like how there is no added typical Hollywood romance. Clarice doesn't have a love interest. I've read that in the sequel novel "Hannibal" Clarice and Lecter end up as lovers, which I find absurd.

This could have easily been just an okay movie like "Manhunter" but the attention to detail, camera nuances and just plain luck in getting an incredible cast of actors elevate the movie into real art.