Review: Nine

Nine was meant to be the big Mirimax Oscar hope this year. A starry cast including Daniel-Day Lewis in the lead flanked by Oscar winners Nicole Kidman, Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Judi Dench and Sophia Loren where could it go wrong? Well nobody thought to write a constructive script for one. Nine deals with one man and the women in his life - his wife, his mistress, his best mate, his muse and his mother plus a prostitute from his past and a flaky fashion journalist. The first big problem is Daniel Day-Lewis usually a captivating presence in whatever he's in from My Beautiful Laundrette to There Will Be Blood he picks his roles well and is always suitable. But he struggles with an Italian accent and with a character who is essentially unlikeable and unmotivated and therefore hard to watch. He flits between all these women, most of whom find him utterly irresistable and I think at some point we're meant to feel sorry for him, something about his upbringing apparently has made him the man he is. Meanwhile the actresses are somewhat more succesful while Kidman and Hudson have little to do as the actress and journalist respectively, Penelope Cruz goes into crazy mode like she did to win her Oscar last year to play the over-horny mistress and Sophia Loren is adeuqate enough playing Lewis' late mother. Judi Dench has the unenviable task of being the comic relief and seems to be having great fun larking about as the sarcastic costume designer and confident to both Lewis and his wife. But it is Marion Cotillard who steals the show as Guido's wife it is her emotional journey that I felt was more captivating but that might have something more to do with the actress rather than the material.

Rob Marshall is most famous for directing Chicago which won the Best Picture award seven years ago. In that the musical scenes were done on a sound stage in front of a band as well as in the movie. Again he uses that tactic but it is not as effective this time. The main structure of the film seems to be female character appears sings and leaves again with only Cotillard getting more than one number and Dench and Cruz staying on after they've sung their numbers. The production values are very good and some of the songs are very memorable most notably Cotillard's second number and Fergie who impresses with the raucous 'Be Italian'. The film ultimately falls short due to a poor lead performance and not enough material to justify its just over two hour runtime. In fact with some off key singing, cultural sterotypes and plenty of dodgy accents its more akin to 1980s BBC sitcom 'Allo 'Allo than any recent big screen musical.