|
 Returning
to his old Broadway stomping grounds, director Rob Marshall brings us
his adaptation of the hit musical, Nine. The film had been in the works
for years with a revolving door of directors meant to helm and stars
meant to play both the tortured protagonist and his collection of
alluring muses/tormentors. Marshall, who retreated from sight after
2005’s controversial and not very good Memoirs of a Geisha, is treading
the same comfortable waters that gave him Oscar-winning success with
2002’s adaptation of another musical, Chicago. He’s got a knack for
bringing Broadway to film which is a rare talent; even rarer to create
an adaptation as satisfying and exciting as Nine.
Guido
Contini is an unhappy man. While the whole world waits for the
acclaimed Italian director’s next venture, no one is as impatient for it
as Guido himself. Lauded for his art, his style, and putting 1960’s
Italy on the cinematic map, Guido’s creative block is one that none of
his usual talismans can shake. Instead of being the inspiration for his
art, it’s very likely the coteries of women who surround the lusty
director are actually the cause of his artistic impotence. Guido flees
the Cinecittà studio where he creates all the silver screen magic and
does a pitiful job of going incognito roughing it in a luxury hotel
where everyone from his wife, his mistress, his producer, his
confidante/costume designer, the press and a Vatican cardinal track him
down. Flashy production numbers featuring each of the characters that
loom large in Guido’s psyche give us glimpses into the mind and soul of
this louche libertine and try to pinpoint where all this debauchery
began.
Making
use of his dazzling cast, Rob Marshall’s Nine sizzles. It’s a
celebration of the mystery, sexuality and allure of women and the man’s
eternal struggle between lust and love. Guido has too much vibrant,
beautiful flesh at his command to care about such traditional ideas as
true love; he’s done the proper thing and married the Madonna-like Luisa
and he’s done the faithless, famous director thing and taken up with
Carla, his mistress, Claudia, his muse, and pretty much any woman he
wants. It’s clear that nothing to Guido, neither love nor flesh, is as
important as getting his movies made, but it isn’t until this creative
block occurs that things start blowing up in Guido’s face and even his
stalwart ladies begin to wonder where they fit into his life, or if they
ever did.
The
ladies of Nine are pure spark: As Luisa, Marion Cotillard first glows
with the wan, beatific serenity of a wife who knows her husband strays
but will always come back to her and put her first - until he doesn’t -
then Cotillard is a volcano of pent-up wrongs and injustices aimed at
her philandering man. Playing Guido’s mistress, Carla, Penelope Cruz is
going to send many a pair of trousers to the tailor during her
sex-drenched musical number, performed in heels, bustier, stockings, and
not a lot else. For all of Carla’s rampaging sexuality, Cruz captures
the dichotomy of the woman who is a Supergirl in the sack and awkward,
needy and inappropriate out of it. Watching Cruz, I was reminded of
some of Sophia Loren’s sexier moments on film in the 1960’s, when Nine
is meant to take place. It’s odd and somehow touching to see La Loren
playing Guido’s mother, who exists now only as a loving, canny-eyed
memory. More vibrant and perfectly cast for her wit that cuts diamonds,
Judi Dench actually vamps it up in corsets and feathers as Lilli,
Guido’s Parisian costume designer and confidant, who dismisses his
frantic anxieties with the most Gallic of shrugs. Nicole Kidman is
luminous, but lacking, drowning in a copy of Anita Ekberg’s La Dolce
Vita dress as Guido’s muse, Claudia. Though she only has one scene,
Fergie is a knockout as Saraghina, the local fallen woman, who
titillates young boys with life lessons in how to please a woman and
live up to their lusty Italian heritage. Feral, earthy and voracious,
her Be Italian number is a highlight. The surprise in the cast comes
from Kate Hudson as Stephanie, a prowling journalist sent to a press
conference to ask Guido fluffy questions, but planning on a much more
intimate interaction. Her Cinema Italiano production number stops the
show; glammed up in fringey white and silver, Hudson jerks, shimmies and
ponies on a catwalk with impeccably suited go-go-boys, all turned out in
celebration of the Italian style and fashion that Guido’s films have put
on the international map. Hudson, like the audience, is clearly having
a ball and it’s great to see she also inherited mama Goldie Hawn’s
groovy, go-go-tastic Laugh-In genes.
As the
lone man in the midst of all this overwhelming pulchritude, it would
take an actor of Daniel Day-Lewis’ fortitude to hold his own and he does
so admirably. It’s not the deepest rendition I’ve seen from Day-Lewis,
but it’s almost a relief that he didn’t necessarily go full Fellini.
Nine is based on iconic Italian director Frederico Fellini’s 8 ½, a
visitation into the director’s own psychic world of fantasy and
anxiety. Guido lives in a circus of the absurd over which he is
ringmaster and it’s only when the performers stop playing their roles
that he is forced to face himself in the center ring. Day-Lewis
captures the eccentric, spoiled nature of Guido without getting too
pathetic or pitying. While never flippant or throwaway, he plays Guido
with the élan the entire production is correctly caught up in and it is
great to see the actor, so well known for his deeply method portrayals
of some scary characters, live it up a bit in these gorgeous production
numbers.
Splashy, glitzy, glamourous and all the reasons we go to the movies,
Nine is a raucous, sexy time that brings fun and star power back into
the cinemas.
Well
done.
~ The
Lady Miz Diva
December 17th, 2009
© 2006-2022 The Diva Review.com
|
