Opening with the wonderful song "Tradition" which is the overriding theme of the entire musical, with its comedy and its pain, this film is a charming, sentimental telling of the lives and tribulations of a family. The beauty of it is that despite occasional violence against a people, they maintain their spirit through the ages. It's about what every father believes, "There is no one adequate to marry my daughter." Things happen and people get knocked down, and eventually everyone gets to his feet once more. There is the combative relationship between Tevye and his wife, and their love ("but do you love me") that goes pretty much unstated. In the end they continue to stand tall together because what they have put into the world is true love, not the overly dramatic, silly love that permeates our world today. See the movie. See the stage play. You will always leave with an optimistic spring in your step, and wonderful songs in your heart.

I know people have complained about the length of this movie. Yeah, it is long, three hours approximately, but there are so many things that compensate. Norman Jewison's direction is very good, and the film is stylishly filmed, with some nice cinematography and there are nice scenery and costumes. The choreography is great, energetic in parts and graceful in others. Next, the music is outstanding. The incidental music largely reminiscent of Russian folk music is a real treat, but the songs are outstanding. The beautiful "Sunrise, Sunset", the fun "Tradition", the idealistic "Match Maker" and the energetic "If I Were A Rich Man", all amazing. Also, Topol, what an absolutely brilliant performance. He put body and soul into Tevye, successfully mixing humour, wisdom and poignancy and the result is one of the most memorable performances in any musical to grace our screens. All the other performances are wonderful, I liked it all five daughters had distinct personalities, and Norma Crane is fantastic as the mother. The story is both tight and poignant, about a milkman of Jewish values, who wishes his five daughters to marry. In conclusion, wonderful and definitely memorable. 10/10 Bethany Cox

A popular film adaptation of the stage musical, although I think this has more to do with the fact that Jews run Hollywood than its quality as a movie. For FIDDLER ON THE ROOF is a long, slow and extremely heavy-going movie, for which the lengthiness of its story is never offset by the quality of the music.

Topol - the only actor in the film to give a notable performance - gives a solid performance as a poor Jewish man struggling to bring up five daughters in 19th century Russia. The various sub-plots that follow involve him pairing off his daughters with varying suitors (along the lines of PRIDE & PREJUDICE) while a growing pogrom against the Jews is developing in the background.

Some of the songs are very good, particularly "Tradition" and "If I Were a Rich Man", but in between these are simply lots of long, drawn out sequences of nothing much happening. In fact, despite the extreme length, I found this to be a fairly empty film, without a great deal of depth or, indeed, substance; everything you see is on the surface, and that's it. This is why I didn't like it very much and it's certainly not a film I can envisage sitting through again when there are so many better, more vibrant musicals out there.