Nine is a movie musical based on a Broadway musical based on Fellini's classic film 8 1/2. The story is pretty straightforward and pretty close to the original. Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a giant in the Italian film industry who is set to begin his latest film project (he's based on Guido Anselmi from the earlier film, who is in turn based on Fellini himself). As production is about to begin, Contini does not have a script and as he sets to write it, he looks back on his life as a boy, a man, a celebrity and a lover of women. As he reminisces, he looks back on the important women of his life. (Even though I always thought there were eight-and-a-half women in the Fellini film, here I can strangely only count seven women - so I guess the title means nothing actually).
Considering the scope and structure of the film, this is really a show for the performers - and the cast is pretty star-studded. Contini's wife is played by Marion Cotillard, the rising French star (look out Audrey Tautou!); his mistress is played by Penelope Cruz; his leading lady and artistic muse is Nicole Kidman; his most-trusted advisor and costume designer (really?!) is Judi Dench; his mother is Sophia Loren; some gypsy whore woman who taught him about sex is Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas; some American Vogue editor is Kate Hudson.
Generally the acting is pretty good. Day-Lewis is good as always (is he ever less than good?), but I don't think the role makes him stretch all that much. Each woman is in the film for a few scenes as almost none of them interact on screen at the same time. As a result, they mostly come on for a song and maybe a brief talking scene and then exit. Kidman basically doesn't come in until the film is almost over. Cotilard and Cruz are both pretty good with the limited parts they have. I think Cruz's role might be a bit more simple, as a scorned mistress, but she is generally good.
Kate Hudson and Fergie give easily the two worst performances of the film - and their two songs are both totally dumb. Fergie comes in as a homeless-looking whore who once upon a time introduced Contini to sex. Her not-very-showstopping song, Be Italian, suggests that in order to be a good Italian man, you have to screw a lot - and screw a lot of women. I am not all that into her voice and her casting seems more about getting a pop star onscreen than anything else. She looks like an evil witch an is sorta hard to watch.
Hudson is an actress I have never understood. I have never thought that she was ever all that good. She had a big role, I guess, in Almost Famous, but since then has not stretched too much, and has basically been blond and skinny (I don't think she's all that pretty). Here she's in way over her head and totally embarrasses herself with Day-Lewis (who, of course is seamless). Her character is *totally* unnecessary (she sings a song about how she likes Italian movies - who cares) and she looks rather fat (sorry - but she lost one of her two traits listed above).
As a musical, the biggest problem with this is that you never see a whole number run through all the way once. Every time the characters break into song, there is a cut to an almost-deserted sound stage (Contini's empty mind/memory, I guess) where they dance around the multi-layer set. As they are singing in some astral plane, there are then several cut-backs to the present, wherever Day-Lewis and his women are living in our world. This structure is very choppy, clearly, and frustrating when all we want is to hear the music. In the end, none of the songs are all that memorable or emotional, because we only get several-second snippets of them before they are cut away.
Director Rob Marshall has emerged in recent years as *the* director for film musicals, after scoring big with Chicago (which I found pretty dull). I do not like his style, which I think is generally too complicated and too full of stuff. He has his roots in Broadway and it shows in his movies where everything is very big and showy. The best thing about Nine is the skeleton of the story that comes from the original Fellini work. It is not terrible, but it is not great. It is fun enough, but just not exciting at all.
Stars: 2 of 4
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Dull, dull, dull but it must have been fun for Day Lewis in the one scene where all the women are together and surround him. They are pretty gorgeous. Fergie didn't make an impression on me but her character did have the same homeless-whore look from the original 8 1/2. I too was frustrated by the fact that not one single number is just performed straight through without endless cutting away to other dramatic moments or flashbacks. I know Rob Marshall is from Broadway but in fact I'd say you CAN'T tell it from his films. Most Broadway directors know the performance is all and wouldn't feel the need to cut cut cut during a musical number. I know you didn't like it much, but Bill Condon's Dreamgirls is infinitely more enjoyable than this.
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