Monday 1 February 2010

Mini Review - 'Nine'

So you gather the cream of the crop to make a movie version of the Musical 'Nine'.
You cast Daniel Day Lewis, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Judi Dench and Sophia Loren to play the parts, Anthony Minghella to write and what do you end up with?
A we bit of a miss opportunity (actually a mess, but trying to be nice)

Firstly director Rob Marshall is not that good of a director.
The story is all over the place, choppily edited together into a series of musings with songs.
The lighting is unflattering.
The songs, aside from 'Be Italian' do not capture any energy.
You waste Kidman, Hudson, Dench and Loren (Fergie makes more of an impact that all of them combined). And then all you are left with is Day Lewis, Cotillard and Cruz to save the day, and they nearly do.
Sadly You do not care about Day Lewis's Guido, a self obsessed, self destructive brat (however the performance is very good).
Cruz is sexy, funny and in the end very vulnerable, yet not given enough development time (not her fault at all) for us to really understand her motivations, or to really care.
All that is left is Cotillard as the wife to inject some much needed sense of humanity in these messy proceedings, and boy does she. Sadly the film is not about her, and for most of the film you are sitting there willing her to come back.

Grade - D+

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