So I finally got to see Nine the other night. I am a huge fan of musicals; I was raised on South Pacific and Oklahoma and Chicago with Catherine Zeta-Jones is not only one of my favorite musicals, it is one of my favorite movies, plays, and soundtracks. So I was excited to see Nine and see the elaborate musical numbers and get lost in a great story. But, alas, it is no surprise that it did not wow the critics and only received a 37% rotten rating on the tomatometer. Of course you would expect critics and mainstream America to have no appreciation for musicals and theater in general, so you would think that the tomatometer would be off. Unfortuntely, it wasn't.
Nine follows the journey of Guido Contini as he strives to make his 9th film after a few recent flops. Apparently he was a film genius but now has lost his nerve. The problem is, you just don't care. Guido is a self-indulged, womanizing, has-been. You don't care if he comes up with a great new movie or not; in fact, you hope he even fails. I kept watching, hoping that he would have some dramatic change in his life that would make him become a better person. And while he does at the end try to do a different kind of film, you don't really care.
The actors in the movie are brilliant. Daniel Day-Lewis puts his heart and soul into everything he does, and you can see it. Marion Cotillard is beautiful and talented as always, as is Nicole Kidman. Fergie is very interesting. She has an amazing voice that probably isn't used to its full potential in the Black-eyed Peas. Penelope Cruz is...well, I hate her character, but she acts it well (though her singing voice doesn't exactly match her speaking voice so a part of me really wonders if it was dubbed). The surprise of the film was Kate Hudson though. I am really surprised her career hasn't taken off more after this film. She is very talented and needs to get out of the horrid comedies and do something serious (though, again, hate her character).
The women in this film are disgraceful. They all want to sleep with Guido and you can't really figure out why (again, old, womanizing, has-been - who wants to shag that?). While the women in Chicago are naughty, like a guilty pleasure, the women in Nine are raunchy, annoying, slutty, have no self-respect or respect for one another.
The music cannot even save Nine. While I don't really care for Mama-Mia, the music is great. I play it and sing it all the time. But in Nine, even removed from the film, it isn't really enjoyable. This is probably because removed from the film, the music wouldn't make sense. Most of the songs are all about....you guessed it, Guido. And usually they are sung by the nasty slut-whores who want to steal him away from his wife (the one character in the film you actually do have sympathy for). The only song that is enjoyable is "Be Italian" (congrats to Fergie for getting the one musical bright spot in the film).
So, overall, just hugely disappointing. After the huge success of Chicago, it seems as though Rob Marchal is trying to strike gold again (Dreamgirls did well also and was an OK film). But it is hard to touch the stars twice and this one falls painfully short and crashes back to earth with a sickening 'thud.' The actors try so hard, though, which is probably the most painful thing about it. Any academy award nominations they got were well deserved, but the film itself did not deserve any since Marshal needs to remember that character and story are what make a film, not song, dance, and flash - those are just the yummy extras.
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