NINE

This post is a few days overdue, so I'm hoping I can recreate my thoughts on the new movie NINE* which I saw last weekend...

Nine is a very interesting movie. It's directed by Rob Marshall, the genius who brought the world Chicago a few years ago. In my mind, its cast is rivaled only by the upcoming film Valentine's Day ... It stars Daniel Day-Lewis, and an astonishing assortment of female divas: Sophia Loren, Judi Dench, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson, and Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson (of the Black Eyed Peas).

The film comes from a 1980's Broadway musical, which in turn was inspired by an Italian play, which itself was based on the film 8 1/2, which is loosely autobiographical of Italian director Federico Fellini. Whew!

It's hard not to have extremely high hopes going into a film like this - just LOOK at the cast list! ... and it's even harder not to have these hopes turn into disappointments if everything about the movie isn't perfect. In all, I really enjoyed the film. It was a flashy, entertaining, and emotional musical with fabulous stars, great music, and an interesting idea. I do agree a bit with some of the more negative reviews I've read that writer's block isn't the best subject for a film. After all, watching Daniel Day-Lewis suffer for inspiration for two and a half hours isn't exactly a blast.**

That said, this film really touched me. It's ironic (and coincidental) that I had been thinking about inspiration on the day I saw Nine. The film deals exactly with the relationship between a creator and the creation... And the struggles that come from lack of inspiration.

Basically, the story is about Italian filmmaker Guido Contini (Day-Lewis), who has had many successes, but more recently, many *flops.* As he struggles to find a subject for his new film, Italia, we meet the seven women that have shaped his life: his mother (Loren), his old friend and costume designer of his films (Dench), his wife (Cotillard), his mistress (Cruz), his leading lady (Kidman), a reporter from Vogue (Hudson) and a mysterious gypsy woman from his childhood (Fergie)

One of the other "stars" of the film is the stage where the new film is meant to be filmed. The centerpiece of the otherwise chaotic sound stage is a beautiful but uncompleted set with columns - some sort of old fashioned Italian exterior... The scaffolding and ropes from the construction of the set provides wonderful monkey bars for several of Guido's songs. Furthermore, all of the songs of the film take place on this set, cutting back and forth between the real-life circumstances of the singer, and the idea that Guido is trying out various parts of his real-life for the subject of the film.

The film is, to use one of the terms I learned last semester, self-reflexive... It itself openly acknowledges its own nature as a film and deals with filmmaking as a subject. Furthermore, its former nature as a stage play can easily be seen, though it has been opened up somewhat to include locations and movement (like the beautiful shots of the winding roads above the ocean as Day-Lewis flees a press conference). This can be seen throughout, in the idea of the stage I already mentioned, in the opening sequence in which the seven leading ladies parade across the stage, more or less introducing themselves to the audience. It continues (slight SPOILER alert) into the end, when Guido finally finds inspiration for a film, called Nine. The film itself ends with his cry of "action!" in a bizarre onscreen-offscreen kind of parallel.

My mind would not stay quiet during the film, and I know I'm missing many of the interesting ideas that occurred to me then. Perhaps when I see it again someday they'll come back to me. I really enjoyed the performances of everyone involved in the film. In fact, two of my favorite songs were not by the Oscar winning actor or actresses... but by the others. Hudson's "Cinema Italiano" and Fergie's "Be Italian" are, in my mind, the most memorable numbers of the work. That said, it was still amazing to see Cruz's flexibility, to hear Kidman's voice again (it's been too long since Moulin Rouge!), to see Dench belt a wonderfully fun number, to see Cotillard overcome awful lyrics in her first song*** to give an amazing and moving performance in her second, etc.

It seems that the critics didn't receive this film as well - EW, one of the only reviews I read gave it an appalling C! - so perhaps it won't reach Oscar-dom. It does have a shot at a Golden Globe, though, and we'll see what happens there. I and everyone I went with sincerely enjoyed the film... it's a great flashy musical with some wonderful performances. Though there are so many movies in theaters right now (gotta love the holidays) - and the ever-so-awesome AVATAR worth seeing again and again,**** I would recommend this movie overall.

Cheers :)



*I'm just going to come out and say it... What's with all the #9 movies this year? There's this, Nine, there's District 9, and there's 9. Of course they're all very different films, but is it just because it's 2009? Weird!
**Although he sure does get to show off the veins in his head and his amazing ability to keep a grungy five o'clock shadow look for nearly two hours.
*** "My husband makes movies / To make them he lives a kind of dream/In which his actions aren't always what they seem!" -- By the way, HOW did she manage to keep tears glistening in her eyes this entire song?
****I still can't believe AVATAR grossed $1 billion worldwide in 17 days... that's just incredible. I'm really rooting for it to beat Titanic's record and for it win some major awards. I stand by my review that it's a stunning and incomparable film - everyone NEEDS to see it at least once in theaters.