"Nine"
(2009, Rob Marshall, USA)
Average Contributor Rating:

Remember “Chicago”? It was that overhyped Academy Award winner which somehow managed to gross over three hundred million dollars. Sure, it was by no means the worst film of the year, but it’s become publicly reviled – by me amongst many, many others – mainly because it was much more successful than it ever deserved to be. And so, excuse the tentative steps I took going into “Nine”, his latest musical, released a full seven years after his successful feature debut. However, the story of Guido (Daniel Day Lewis) – a talented and successful Italian film director – and the many women within his life (including Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Sofia Lauren, Fergie, and Kate Hudson) is not a complete waste of time. In fact, it’s half way to being good.

There’s a lot to like in “Nine”. First off, there are the performances, which is kind of a given with an ensemble cast with this much silverware under their belts. The majority of them (Cruz, Dench, Lauren, Kidman, Cotillard, and – of course – Day Lewis) have won Oscars, whilst Hudson was nominated for “Almost Famous”, and most of these actors certainly put on a show. Marion Cotillard is certainly the highlight amongst the women, playing a wife crushed under the pressure of a husband. She’s tinged with cynicism, but enough naivety to make her moment of realization – that her husband is still playing away – the most impactful of the film. Her counterpart, Daniel Day Lewis, is equally as impressive, on the brink of despair in a world that doesn’t understand why he’s so down. I mean, he’s a famous film director with countless beautiful women at his feet, a trendy sports car, and a wardrobe fall of swish suits. He has it all, but the world just doesn’t understand that ‘all’ is too much for him.

And the majority of the film is concerned with Guido Contini’s creative block. The film begins with a conversation about the repeated death of a film, and continues with many attempts to get the ball rolling on a never-completed (or started, actually) script. The film’s a contemplation on the creative process as a whole, and what happens when the integral part of this process – the author, as it were – begins to become ineffectual. It also has some nice (but, admittedly, only half explored) musings on mid-life crises, and the thoughts on the effects of this crises are amongst the most intelligent in the film. Of course, the film is based on “8 ½”, the ninth (to be pedantic) feature film of Federico Fellini, and all of these ideas are second hand. But still, it’s nice to see something going on behind the gloss and glamour of a Hollywood banner film.

But I’d be lying if I were to say that “Nine” is without flaws. In fact, it’s a hell of a long way from being flawless, even if it is better than “Chicago”. The first problem is with its target audience. I’d imagine that the film will eventually be successful, and that the countless banner names on the poster will draw people in from every demographic. Men will go for the possibility of a bit of skin (and they’ll get it), women will go in hopes of a “Chicago” or “Mamma Mia” re-incarnate, and the middle brow movie goers will be blinded by the gold on the mantle pieces of the cast and crew. But, unfortunately, nobody will truly be satisfied. Those who will go for the catchy show tunes, the “Mamma Mia” crowd as Empire calls them, will be blind to the semi-intellectual babbling on life and creativity, and those who go for these babblings will be disappointed by the clunky dialogue (the moment when Day Lewis and Cotillard meet at an audition is almost embarrassing). Sure, everybody will be satisfied by bits of this movie, but who is going to be satisfied by “Nine” in its entirety?

And then there are the songs. As you’d expect from a Marshall-helmed musical, they are all technically efficient. Those who you didn’t know could sing (Cruz… Day Lewis… Dench… Hudson) are all able enough, with the male star being the highlight. Those who we’d all heard before (Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, and Black Eyed Pea Fergie) are unsurprisingly impressive. Everybody dances well as part of exquisitely choreographed pieces, and nobody looks an inch out of place. However, it’s all so mechanic and overly efficient. There is no heart or feeling or spirit in the first dozen songs, and everything feels so by-the-books. The songs seem spaced out at identical intervals, and just as you begin to think “we haven’t had a song in four minutes”, another one comes to plug the gap. Just when you think Marshall has conjured up some genuine emotion in one of his songs – with a hell of a lot of help from a fiery Marion Cotillard – in the penultimate number, he has to ruin it by pandering to a demographic with an unnecessary boob shot. What’s the point? What does it prove? It doesn’t add anything to the song, or the film, but rather deflates and cheapens them both.

“Nine” is very much a film that exceeded my expectations. Cotillard, Day Lewis, and most of the rest of the cast excel, and when they are on screen the film lifts up a few notches. When we feel the influence of Fellini, the film is gold. When we feel the decrepit, glossy, and uninspiring presence of Rob Marshall, it is not. I doubt anybody will go away from it thinking it’s perfect; it takes a stab at too many demographics to be perfect to any one. But still, it’s a damn sight better than “Chicago” (have I said that yet?), and one of the better musicals of the last few years. Maybe it’s because we have finally escaped the shadow of 2001’s “Moulin Rouge” that we can finally appreciate mediocre musicals again. . JB.
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