{Review} Nine

[Emperor]

The summary:  Ultimately, it is a good movie that completely fails as a musical.

 

 

THIS JUST IN: Breaking news! Fire is hot. Water is wet. George Washington is to be declared first President of the United States. The area of a circle can be deduced by multiplying Pi by the radius squared. Chocolate is delicious. Men typically love the sight of beautiful women. There is no known way to either prove or disprove the existence of God. If you post something on the internet, someone will invariably type the word FIRST under it whether they are actually first or not. And Daniel Day-Lewis is hands down the world’s best living actor.

 

Look, let’s get this out of the way right now. Heaping praise of Daniel Day-Lewis is redundancy in action. You know he’s the world’s best living actor; as I’ve written before he’s the Halley’s Comet of actors. Film’s he appears in are so rare that they are something you need to see for yourself. And this is no different. He is absolutely wonderful, 100% brilliant, and positively inspired. Now, if only Rob Marshall were as inspired by the material as Day-Lewis. Then we would have something to behold.

 

Unfortunately this is a musical, and while every single scene of dialog and story in this film is gripping and marvelous, the musical numbers are tired, weak and ultimately feel like filler. NINE is the musical adaptation of Fellini’s classic 8 ½, a film about a blocked artist trying to find his vision in a world forcing him to make art before it is ready. For artists of any kind this story speaks volumes about the creative method and the pressure to perform, even when you are unable. But to those who don’t wrestle with creative endeavors, the film needs to reach out and paint a picture of the turmoil and internal strife he is going through. This it attempts to do through song.

 

Each song is sung by a different woman (some of whom get a second song), one of the many muses in the artist Guido’s life. Performance wise, they range from good to great. Even the most uneven among them are still pretty damned good – a testament to the collection of incredible women Rob Marshall has assembled. But only a few of the numbers are in any way moving, and none of them share the brilliant, unique style of Marshall’s CHICAGO. Instead, each feels like an example of the kind of musical numbers most often complained about – music for the sake of having music. When I think back on CHICAGO I remember such great numbers as The Press Conference Rag Marionette sequence or the Cell Block Tango; here there isn’t a single memorable number like those. Not one.

 

And being a musical, it doesn’t matter how good the performances are, if the music is uninspired, the film is uninspired. Fortunately here, the story and performances are so good, that it is worth sitting through the songs – which aren’t in any way bad, just not incredible or particularly memorable – to take in. When it isn’t Day-Lewis stealing the show here, it is Judi Dench who runs circles around every other woman on screen. Everyone should have a Judi Dench in their lives; here she serves as friend, confidant, priest, mother and secretary, providing the one stable element in Guido’s life and the unrewarded glue that keeps it all together. Dench lights up the screen every time she is in frame, and herself provides enough charisma and charm to keep the movie afloat even when it begins flagging. It is the stuff Best Supporting Actress nominations are made of and exactly the kind of powerhouse performance we’ve come to expect out of her – even if we are occasionally surprised when she outdoes even herself, as she does here.

 

Unfortunately, outside of Dench and Day-Lewis, only Marion Cotillard is able to really shine. The rest of the cast, each and every one of them extremely talented and bringing what they’ve got, simply aren’t given the material with which to make a real impression. These characters are either annoying, cloying or sadly underused; only Cotillard’s Luisa has the pathos and personality to make for a somewhat memorable performance. She’s great and serves as the film’s heartbreak, but even her incredible voice and emotion can’t bring anything interesting to Marshall’s dull staging during her musical numbers.

 

And that’s what it really comes down to. As a FILM this is great and I devoured every moment of Day-Lewis wrestling with his inner demons. But every time the music cued up I disconnected. Ultimately, it is a good movie that completely fails as a musical. I wanted very much to get into it, but it doesn’t hold a candle to many of the musical efforts we’ve seen in this past decade. Easily forgettable, I’d recommend this to folks who enjoy watching a film for the performances alone and not really anyone else.