Nine (**½)

Directed by: Rob Marshall

Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penélope Cruz, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman, Kate Hudson, Fergie, Sophia Loren, Ricky Tognazzi

Seen: March 13^th 2010

**½ Out of ****

Guido Contini (Day-Lewis) is one of the most famous directors alive, and fans recognise him wherever he goes. His last few movies have not been “critically acclaimed” though, and even his great fans seem to agree on that while still praising him for his earlier efforts. Dante (Tognazzi), his producer, coerces him to finalise the script for his new movie, ambitiously named Italia, but Guido has a bad case of writer’s block, and cannot get himself to write anything coherent, or anything at all really. He doodles the movie’s title in different fonts on a piece of paper awaiting inspiration. His situation is not improved at all by his interactions with the opposite sex, as he has a wife and a mistress and many other possibilities and pressure points, and in all of this he suffers to find a single focal point.

The movie starts with Guido in an interview with the press, trying to avoid talking about the movie because he claims it kills the movie little by little to talk about it to the press, among other things. Escaping from the gang of reporters he drives off, and finds his mother (Loren) in the car with him. She is a guiding voice, and he definitely acknowledges her voice in his life. At his new hotel he calls his wife, Luisa (Cotillard), for guidance as he seems really lost. While there he arranges for his mistress, Carla (Cruz) to join him, but then Dante brings the crew to him and once again things get complicated for him. While trying to come up with a believable script to give his star, Claudia (Kidman), he has to juggle all the different females he somehow has connections of higher and lesser degrees of complication with. There’s Luisa, his wife, who he has in effect estranged from her own movie-world ambitions with his obsessive career; Carla, his mistress who is slightly oblivious to the fact that she might alarm his wife; Lilli La Fleur (Dench), his costume maker, hounding him for more details so she can start creating the outfits for the movie; Stephanie (Hudson), the reporter who tries to seduce him; Saraghina (Fergie), a prostitute he remembers in flashbacks from his youth; and his ever-present mother.

The music in this movie is good, make no mistakes, but the presentation struck me as strange. Not a single song is actually part of the main storyline and/or proceedings, as all 10 songs are presented in either dream-like sequences or flashbacks. Guido has an over-active imagination, but he cannot channel it effectively – it all goes into his fantasies and daydreams, and he seems unable to utilise any of it creatively. The first song is by Guido himself, with the following eight by the female characters in the movie (One by each lead actress, with two for Marion Cotillard), and a final one for Guido again. Apart from Cinema Italiano, Stephanie’s song, which felt like it absolutely did not fit in the movie, most of these songs struck me as good enough to bring across what’s necessary for the plot to continue, but nothing special like I felt with just about every song in Moulin Rouge. Strangely enough it is the Moulin Rouge star who gave the long needed lift to the movie, as with Nicole Kidman’s part the movie comes to life; she touches (only very slightly, but it is there) on the attributes she displayed as Satine in Moulin Rouge, and her song is a beautiful one; while in the number following this Luisa bares her soul in a very powerful song, brilliantly brought to life by the fantastic Marion Cotillard.

Nine felt similar to the kind of movie Guido was busy making here, like a jumble of good elements thrown together which doesn’t truly play out with synergy. Daniel Day-Lewis has now done two movies on the trot featuring a progression fitting that of his lead character, but There Will be Blood was much more of a tour de force. All in all, in Nine I enjoyed some parts more and others less; so in general this is not an exceptional musical, but it is not a bad one either.