Reviewed
by Lamar Kukuk
1/3/10
You
may gasp and/or look down upon me with derision if you desire, but I must
confess that not only have I never seen 8 ½, but I have never
seen any of Federico Fellini's films (in answer to your question, I call
myself a film critic because I have the $7.00 a month for the web space
and the time to do the writing, but that's beside the point...).
Perhaps if I had, I'd have a better appreciation of Rob Marshall's Nine,
the film version of the Broadway musical version of Fellini's best-regarded
film. Or perhaps not. Because 8 ½ couldn't possibly
rank as IMDB's 165th greatest movie of all time if it in any way resembled
Marshall's thudding, self-involved and draggy tale of a fictional filmmaker's
mid-life crisis. Luckily, the project has attracted a constellation
of Hollywood stars who put the work in to become quality singers, because
Nine's saving grace (as in “saved from being unbearable”) is that
its' hard-working cast sings their hearts out leading to scene after scene
where I marveled at the previously unknown vocal talent of the star singing
whatever uninspired or downright dreadful song was being performed at the
moment. Daniel Day-Lewis leads a series of game performances as cardboard
characters, resulting in a movie that, like the one its protagonist is
planning to direct, resembles a first-rate production in every way except
that it has no script.
It's
1965, and Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) is Italy's most beloved filmmaker
despite having directed back-to-back flops. He is a week away from
beginning production on “Italia”, an epic tale of... well, that's the problem,
because he doesn't just have no script, he has no real idea what kind of
movie he wants to make. Staring at a blank piece of paper, he's distracted
by the many women in his life, past and present. They include his
wife Luisa (Marion Cotillard), mistress Carla (Penelope Cruz), leading
lady Claudia (Nicole Kidman), costume designer Lilli (Judi Dench), journalist
Stephanie (Kate Hudson), and the memories of his mother (Sophia Loren),
and neighborhood temptress Saraghina (Fergie). As the clock ticks
toward Italia's production start, he watches all these relationships crumble:
can Guido Contini ever regain the magic of his brilliant past?
Marshall's
Chicago is one of the best modern movie musicals, and he made the
bold choice of shooting it in a structurally blunt way: the entire
story took place in a world that was but a stage, requiring few compromises
to the play's structure. With Nine, however, a similar approach
is an anchor around the movie as he intercuts between the storyline and
musical numbers taking place in someone's head (it's never really clear
whose) where the women in Guido's life belt out their innermost feelings.
But because Nine is supposed to be about the movies, its staginess
just feels wrong, and the stop-and-start Talk/Sing, Talk/Sing structure
moves the story in stops and starts that keep it from ever gaining any
momentum. Rather than conquer the awkwardness of characters breaking
out in song, this approach only heightens it.
It
hurts even more that for all that seems to be going on in Nine,
none of it is persuasive. Guido's would-be movie isn't played for
enough laughs to be believed as comedy and certainly no one could realistically
be a week away from production with no ideas while a crew labored on sets
and costumes inspired by... what? We're to believe that the frenzy
of Guido's life is driving him to a breakdown, but everything we witness
is neat and orderly. The many women in his life call for his attention
one at a time, all the better to end the encounters with musical numbers,
and his affair with Carla isn't even much of a secret. We hear again
and again what a genius he is and how Italy needs him to continue making
great movies (dear God, I hope Fellini didn't spend 8 ½ patting
himself on the back this way), but because he's a fictional director and
we never see a second of any of his previous films (which, for the purposes
of Nine, seemed to exist only as a pretense to proposition women
during screen tests), none of those ideas get any traction. It all
adds up to Guido coming across as a self-involved jerk/wuss who could easily
unentangle his affairs and just get back to work.
Not
that anyone in the cast seems to notice. Day-Lewis tosses himself
into Guido with his usual reckless abandon, and it's quite a change of
pace role for his generation's greatest actor. He can really sing,
and in early scenes built around the shell game he's playing with his non-movie,
we even see him play a little comedy. What he's not able to do is
convey any kind of reason we should care about Guido, but I think that's
because he's playing the part as written, and in the script by Michael
Tolkin and the late Anthony Minghella, there's really no reason to.
Cotillard gives Luisa her all and is the movie's most sympathetic character
since she's the primary victim of Guido's selfishness. Cruz is good
in each individual scene although I didn't feel like Carla's seductive
and suicidal tendencies seemed to flow out of the same brain. Kidman
is quite good in her small role, as she's got a natural Movie Star glow
and does a great job of treating Guido like she knows exactly what he is.
The only problem with Claudia is that she's forced to enact the single
most ridiculous “Look, I look off my wig and now I'm a hideous old hag
who looks just like Nicole Kidman” moment ever committed to film.
Dench is great as the sort of crew member enabler without whom megalomaniacal
geniuses cannot function. Loren shows off a great singing voice,
and Fergie's scenes are the movie's most dynamic.
It
doesn't hurt that she gets the best song, “Be Italian”, and a musical number
that has a point relating to her character. Kate Hudson, meanwhile,
fires on all cylinders as the Vogue writer who desperately wants
to become another of Contini's conquests, and may have the movie's best
singing voice. Her number, “Cinema Italiano” was one of three songs
written for the film (a whopping 14 songs from the Broadway show didn't
make the cut) and, let's be honest, it is simply awful. But she sings
it so well and performs it with such high spirits that the scene has the
odd effect of being simultaneously one of the movie's worst and best.
I didn't like the songs by composer Maury Yeston in general, so if you're
a fan of the original musical, your results may vary.
Nine
certainly looks great, whatever you may think of Marshall's directorial
choices. He randomly mixes in old-school Black-and-White to transport
you back to a 1960's Italian Movie state of mind, and his cast of lovely
actresses shows about as much skin as the PG-13 rating will allow.
Given that, the movie is strangely unerotic, and never has a lead character
so consumed with sex seemed to get so little enjoyment out of it.
Nine
is the prototypical Hollywood misfire, trying to pare down a Broadway play
based on a 35-year-old film made in another language. It exists primarily
as an audition reel for a bunch of stars having a great time getting the
chance to sing for us, and if you're entertained just looking at beautiful
women being beautiful, you won't be disappointed. But this isn't
exactly the stuff of which classic cinema is made, or so I've heard. |
