Nine is Rob Marshall’s return to musicals and the result is a bit unexpected but full of quality performances and entertaining musical numbers that entertain nearly from start to finish.
The film picks up ten days prior to the start date of Guido Contini’s latest and ninth film and the stars, the costumes, the sets are all booked or well under way. The only problem is that Contini has no idea, no story, and no script, just a title; Italia. It also doesn’t help that Contini has had a series of flops and is about ready to launch into a full on mid-life crisis. Juggling the many women in his life, his dead mother, muse of a star, mistress, sultry reporter, his past, his costume designer, and his wife, he searches for inspiration as we plow toward the start of production and he tries to bring this picture together.
Daniel Day Lewis stars as Contini and is marvelous in the role. Funny, frantic, fast talking and just the right amount of sleaze come out of him as he dodges questions and women searching for inspiration. Contini is in every scene of the film and his journey would make for an interesting film even without the musical numbers added in. Day Lewis does a fine job, as expected with the singing and dancing of the role and is entirely convincing as an Italian. The mid life crisis story has been done time and time again, but this one definitely holds up told through the eyes of Contini and is full of entertainment as he imagines his world through musical numbers full of sexiness and flash. [Read more...]