Nine (2009)

Six months ago, the anticipation for NINE was at a 10. With an astounding who's who of Oscar-winning and nominated actors and the director of the Best Picture-winning "Chicago" on board to bring another Tony-winning musical to the big screen.

So what happened?

NINE did not do very well, with critics or with audiences. I finally got a chance to see it, and I must confess that I did not despise it as others have. I did not hate it as some of my friends did. And I feel a little guilty to admit that I'd rather be watching a film like NINE than most of the stuff that's out there. But I will say this: NINE didn't work. That's the best way I know how to put it.

So I've been doing some thinking about why NINE didn't work, and I've come up with the following ideas, presented here in stream-of-conscience rather than order of importance:

1. Rob Marshall's concept for NINE was too similar to "Chicago."

Marshall reenergized the Broadway musical on the movie screen with his gutsy and creative vision of "Chicago" as, essentially, a musical taking place inside of the head of the story's main character. The concept was, frankly, brilliant. The original stage show always felt like more of a review than a full-blown narrative journey, and Marshall also came up with an idea that completely takes off the table the criticism that many have of musicals, which is the dislike for the whole "breaking out into song thing." With "Chicago," it seemed perfectly feasible that Roxy Hart, stuck on death row, would use her imagination to escape. The glossy and colorful production numbers were also in keeping with the concept of the media circus that surrounds criminal investigations and turns killers into national celebrities.

With NINE, Marshall mines an identical concept. This time, a famous Italian film director, Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) is in crisis over the creation of his latest project, tortured by his own guilt and infidelity. And just as with "Chicago," Contini will stare off into space, anguished in thought, and the person of whom he's thinking or the woman he's looking at will go into a glitsy production number. In doing so, Marshall shoots himself in the foot as an innovator of the film musical, because he's mostly repeating his last musical.

It must be said that this is actually the way the original Broadway musical "Nine" works. If anything, Marshall applied the "Nine" strategy to "Chicago." But "Chicago" came first, and it was better. A lot better.

2. Marshall's changes to the original musical might have done more damage than good.

Many people will see NINE without having first seen Fellini's "8 1/2" (upon which the musical is based) or having seen or heard either the original stage production or recent revival of the musical. These folks will have no idea that Marshall makes some serious changes to the show, and they are changes that I don't feel are for the better. To conserve space and save time, I'll list a few of those changes without elaborating:

The character of "young Guido" is severely reduced and underused in the film.

Half of the songs in the musical, including some of its best numbers, are cut from the film.

New songs are added in at Marshall's own risk. One, "Take it All," is a highlight of the film. Another, "Cinema Italiano," is a huge mistake and a focus-pulling embarrassment.

The concept of Catholic guilt, a significant and driving force in both Fellini's work and the original musical, is only cosmetically hinted at here, when it needed to be a driving force.

3. The film version of NINE lacks narrative build.

Essentially, the main character of NINE is a film-maker who is almost never seen working on his craft. If he had been a car driver, we could buy it more, as Day-Lewis spends most of NINE driving around in his spiffy sports car. Guido doesn't evolve much over the course of the film. He is cantankerous and unlikeable at the beginning and remains so at the end. The only way he grows is in his ability to take his lecherous life and, in theory, make some art from it. But that's not enough to get us to like the guy. Most of us know that a character needs to grow and change to make a film interesting. Is it change enough that Guido stops himself from sleeping with an American fashion reporter (Kate Hudson)? I wasn't sold.

In addition, Marshall's streamlining of the original musical left the show with, essentially, one musical number for each of the film's stars, a structure that too quickly reveals itself and then grows tired. Day-Lewis and Marion Cotillard (the best thing in NINE) are supposed to be the "leads" here, so they each get two numbers. But then, the film lines up Judi Dench, Sophia Loren, Kate Hudson, Fergie, Nicole Kidman and Penelope Cruz and gives each a song. And the dramatic art of the film remains flat and stagnant. The story is designed in such a way that these women don't really interact with one another, either, so the musical numbers lack the ensemble work of better shows. The closest NINE comes to an ensemble number is the opening dream sequence, where few words are actually sung and each woman appears as an introduction to the audience.

One of the reasons why I refer to NINE as a movie that "didn't work" rather than a "bad movie" is because I don't think the original musical is that spectacular, either. We can blame Marshall for a lot of what I mentioned above, but it's important to note that the original concept wasn't so different. Marshall's really most at fault for not being able to transform the mediocre into something better. It started mediocre and remains so.

I would stop short of saying that NINE isn't worth your time for the following reasons:

1. Marion Cotillard

Why this woman was not nominated for either this film or her work in "Public Enemies" is a bit of a crime. Cotillard anchors NINE. Perhaps her Oscar-winning work as Edith Piaf in "La Vie en Rose" was training for her work here, but she sells her numbers ("My Husband Makes Movies" and "Take It All") more convincingly than anyone else in the film, with the possible exception of Fergie, an actual singer who humps her way through "Be Italian" in lingerie. There is criticism of "Take It All" in that Cotillard, as the cheated-on wife, is forced to strip to undergarments like most of the other women in the film, but I would argue that the number calls for it -- the shedding of clothes is much more symbolic, metaphorical, here. Cotillard just hit the top 10 of my favorite actress list this year, and her performance here is part of the reason why.

2. The other actresses

Judi Dench kills with a huge production number. Is there anything this woman cannot do? Sophia Loren's very presence brings prestige and emotional power to NINE. While Kate Hudson's over-edited and hammy lyric-filled song don't work, her non-singing moments in the film are quite good. She's downright sexy. As is, of course, Penelope Cruz, though I would have nominated Cotillard over Cruz in a heartbeat...what is it with the Oscars and tramps? Kidman reprises her breathy, simple song delivery, first introduced to us in "Moulin Rouge!," but her stunning beauty makes her completely believable as Contini's cinematic muse. And Fergie completely works in her role as a mysterious prostitute who teaches a young Guido about love and sex.

Notice I didn't mention Daniel Day-Lewis. While I respect him tremendously, I found his work here to be not that much different from his work in "There Will Be Blood" in that, though he is far less over-the-top in a musical than in that film (which is saying something about TWBB), he is similarly unlikeable and non-redeemable as a character. All brooding and angsty. The singing was not great, and Marshall was right to edit Guido's vocal moments down to a minimum. And then there's the issue of Day-Lewis' "Italian-ness." There wasn't any, short of a good accent.

3. The production values

Say what you want about Rob Marshall, but the man knows how to put on a show. The costumes and set designs are fabulous and deliver as a movie musical should. It's clear that Marshall doesn't have an auteur's grasp over how to use a camera yet, with spastic cross-cutting dominating some song numbers and much more steady, quiet work in other places, but NINE looks fantastic, as it should. Even if you don't enjoy NINE in the end, the journey is always worth looking at. And the fact that Marshall can assemble a cast like this is proof that the film community takes his talent seriously. I would really like to see him continue on with additional film versions of musicals.

This was probably too long of a review for a mediocre film, but I'm very passionate about Broadway musicals and thrilled to see the musical back on the big screen with some regularity. Recent big-screen adaptations of shows like "Rent" and "The Producers" have not done well in movie theatres, and NINE belongs in that pile, not the pile that contains "Chicago" and "West Side Story." But I'd have rather had NINE than not, even if, on a scale of 1-to-10, it was more like a 5.

2.5 out of 4