Christopher Plummer, who finally won a much-deserved Oscar for “Beginners’’ this year, sinks his teeth into an even juicier role in this one-man film: that of legendary actor and drunk John Barrymore.
Plummer re-creates his Tony-winning stage role from 15 years ago — when he was in his mid-60s, approximately the same age as Barrymore was in 1942, when the play was set.
As in William Luce’s play (adapted by director Erik Canuel), we see the once-top actor known as “The Great Profile” in his final days, a shambling wreck struggling to rehearse so he can woo backers for a final comeback in “Richard III.’’
Barrymore, who continues to drink though it has destroyed his memory and his reputation, is haunted by the ghosts of his past, especially his father — an actor who died at 55 — and his four marriages. His children, also famously drunks, including Drew Barrymore’s dad, are not mentioned.
But the old man also does impressions of his famous actor siblings Ethel and Lionel, and recounts a hilarious anecdote about Lionel’s determined efforts to upstage his younger brother in the film “Night Flight.’’
With much help from an exasperated off-screen prompter — the only other performer in this small gem — Plummer’s Barrymore shows flashes of glory as he delivers bits and pieces of various Shakespearean roles.
The film ends with a re-creation of Barrymore’s “Richard III’’ soliloquy that was excerpted in a 1929 movie, “Show of Shows,’’ made before drink had taken its full toll.