There was a lot of hype surrounding Nine, due to both its megastar cast including Daniel Day-Lewis, Judi Dench, Penelope Cruz, Nicole Kidman, Marion Cotillard, Sofia Loren, Kate Hudson and Fergie and it being director Rob Marshalls return to the musical after the Oscar-winning Chicago. Thats six-Oscar winning actors, plus one other nominee, as well as an Oscar-winning director. Its also based on a multiple Tony winning musical, which was itself based on Fellinis classic film 8 1/2, meaning that all the omens looked to be in place for this to be something spectacular.
The films US distributor, The Weinstein Company, must have thought so, as they launched a huge campaign to get the movie Academy Awards, which resulted in four nominations but little chance of a win. Almost immediately on its cinema release, it was clear that despite its pedigree, Nine was a bit of a bust.
Day-Lewis stars as Italian movie director Guido Contini, whos announced to the press and his cast that hes about to go into production on a new movie called, Italia. However theres a bit of a problem, hes actually in the middle of a mid-life crisis and hasnt written anything, despite everyone preparing to start filming. As he tries to find meaning and direction in his life, he also attempts to find balance between the various women in his life, including his wife (Cotillard), mistress (Cruz), the main star of his film (Kidman), his confidant and costume designer (Dench), an American journalist (Hudson), a prostitute from his youth (Fergie) and the spirit of his deceased mother (Loren).
Unfortunately though, the films strength are also its weaknesses. With so much star power and a top choreographer and director in the form of Rob Marshall, the musical numbers look great, even if theyre slightly too hyper-kinetic. However because there are so many big name actors, each one only gets a short amount of screen time, coming into the movie for a bit and getting their own musical number, before leaving, often never to be seen again. It gives the whole thing the sense of being a musical revue, which each star doing their turn before it moves on to the next one.
This feeling is underlined by the Chicago-like conceit of having all the songs taking place in a sort of fantasy world inside Guidos mind. It means every few minutes we leave the plot to enter a sort of music video world where someone sings a song, but whereas in Chicago the transitions were handled well, here its a bit random and distracting.
It would help if the actual plot kept you hooked, but theres very little to it, other than Guido being all angst-ridden and self-obsessed. The movie tries to bring in a few interesting ideas about his relationship to women, but little of it makes any impact and much of it seems to be trying to hide the fact its all slightly misogynistic, leaving a musical that feels pretty much like a series of megastar music videos, with a token plot tacked on to try and hold things together. Even this might have been okay if each tune in this revue posing as a movie was a showstopper, but few of them are. Except for a couple of numbers, such as Take It All and Cinema Italiano, theyre all rather samey and mediocre, with the actors actually doing a far better job than the songs themselves probably deserve. Cruz, Cotillard and Hudson in particularly are great singers, and it would be great to see them one day in a far better musical. To tell the truth, some of the lyrics are truly hideous.
The special features on the DVD are a pretty standard bunch. While there are quite a lot of featurettes, theyre all pretty same-ish, with the cast and crew talking about how brilliant everything is and how they all came to be in the movie, and how brilliant it all is. The actresses tend to talk about how exciting it was to film their song, and watching the movie you can see it probably was quite thrilling to film each segment. Its just a shame it doesnt hang together that well.
The best featurettes look at the choreography of the songs Be Italian and Cinema Italiano, giving a short but fairly interesting look at how they went about putting it all together. There are also a few music videos, which are quite fun. However despite the fairly long-looking list of extras, it comes across as a pretty perfunctory selection.
Overall Verdict: While there are a few musical highlights and the cast give it their all, theres so little to pull Nine together that it feels like a lot of effort expended creating something thats less than the sum of its part.
Special Features:
The Incomparable Daniel Day-Lewis Featurette
The Women Of Nine Featurette
Behind The Look Of Nine Featurette
The Dancers Of Nine Featurette
The Choreography Of Cinema Italiano Featurette
The Choreography Of Be Italian Featurette
Making Of Cinema Italiano Featurette
Take It All Music Video
Cine Italiano Music Video
Unusual Way Music Video
Reviewer: Tim Isaac