‘Nine’ mishandles musical take on Fellini’s ‘8 1/2’
Published 9:03 am Thursday, December 24, 2009
Looking at the newspaper ads for “Nine,” the splashy musical, I am missing something in the crowd of credits at the bottom. I see the names of the casting director and the music supervisor, but there’s no mention of Federico Fellini.
Fellini’s 1963 film “8½” merely provided the premise and characters found in “Nine,” but never mind. Perhaps it’s kinder to leave the late Italian director out of this travesty.
“Nine” was made into a Broadway musical in 1982, a show that has been considerably worked-around for the screen. But its basic idea is still much as Fellini had it: a famous filmmaker, Guido Contini, is suffering a severe case of writer-director’s block over his next project.
The sets are built, the money’s in place, and the actors are waiting—but there’s no script, and we watch as Guido stumbles dazedly through a few days of sex, cigarettes and memories.
As “Nine” re-imagines it, Guido, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, “imagines” various musical numbers in a vast movie studio where his next film will supposedly be shot.
I guess this is director Rob (“Chicago”) Marshall’s way of avoiding the phenomenon of characters breaking out into song in an otherwise realistic scene, which modern audiences supposedly can’t handle. His approach might have worked, if the numbers weren’t so garishly conceived.
In the film’s more everyday sections, Guido juggles his timidly suffering wife (Marion Cotillard from “La vie en rose”), his lavishly suffering mistress (Penelope Cruz), a hot-to-trot journalist (Kate Hudson), and, eventually, his star (Nicole Kidman).
Once in a while he also fantasizes scenes with his late mother (Italian legend Sophia Loren—who else?) and recalls a boyhood encounter with an earthy prostitute (Black Eyed Peas songstress Fergie, a credible piece of casting).
The re-creation of the 1962 milieu is sometimes pleasing (Guido’s car is nice, anyway), but much of the movie — especially the stuff representing his imagination — looks weirdly trashy. Almost every woman in the movie is dressed, at some point, like a stripper doing a pole dance.
For a while it’s kind of interesting to watch how Marshall and his lead actor are going to approach the material. Unfortunately, Daniel Day-Lewis, who can be electrifying when the role fits his chameleon-like approach, makes Guido seem more vacant than blocked.
A comparison between Day-Lewis and Marcello Mastroianni as the same character in “8½” gives a handy difference between an actor and a movie star: Day-Lewis’s incredible technique can’t fill in the personality of this passive character, while Mastroianni simply breathed it, flawlessly.
The presence of six Oscar winners (Judi Dench is in there too) isn’t enough to carry the day. And comparing this movie to Fellini isn’t even necessary: “Nine” is rickety enough to collapse all on its own.
