Dir: Peter Middleton, James Spinney. 12, 114 minutes.
Is The Real Charlie Chaplin guilty of false advertising? Its title promises an excavation – it’s no secret that Chaplin was a complex man; a victim of anti-communist hysteria who also acted abusively towards women and preyed on teenage girls. But it’s hard to tell whether directors Peter Middleton and James Spinney are truly being honest about the impossibility of squaring up his problematic side with the rousing, everyman innocence of the Chaplin we see on screen.
