Nine

I wanted to love Nine, I really did. I wanted to sing its praises and talk about how wonderful the cast was across the board, about how much fun I had during the entire film, about how great the big production numbers were…I can say none of these things. Nine is a miss-fire with few redeeming qualities.

The story, as this flimsy thing could be questionably called, contains a director who has reached a creative roadblock and cannot complete his ninth film. Strange that he has such a rich and vibrant imaginary life. Every trick you can think of is thrown in for good measure. Want some black and white? You got it. Want some T&A girlie show? You got it. Want sparkles, glitter, sequins, go-go dancing and the kitchen sink? You have got that, too.

I never thought that I’d say this, but I have seen a bad Daniel Day-Lewis performance. The actor that can stand above the rest, except for, maybe, Meryl Streep, is fantastic in brooding and complicated roles. Here, he is too dour for Guido. Javier Bardem, the original choice, would have been far better. There needs to be a breezy, slightly care-free artifice, a gigolo with mommy issues, and Day-Lewis is far too dark, sour and interior for that. He’s also not much of a song and dance man.

But this is, mostly, a spotlight for some great female actors that plays out like the cinematic equivalent to one of those VH1 Divas specials. Each get their big moment (only one gets two, Marion Cotillard) and there’s a big group number at the beginning and another at the very end.

Dame Judi Dench is perfectly fine. There’s nothing terribly special about her performance, but she’s far too good for such a thinly plotted role. Sophia Loren and Nicole Kidman are nothing but glorified cameos given far-too brief screen time as hallucinations before finally being trotted out towards the end for their songs. Nicole Kidman’s song has terrible staging, but the straight-acting portion of it is wonderful. The muse gets to tell her director that she wants to play something other than a fantasy creature in human form. Sophia Loren, however, is utterly wasted in a thankless role. But it’s wonderful and sublime to see on her the big screen again. Fergie is neither awful nor terrific in her cameo role. She looks good with the extra weight she’s put on, but her breasts are immobile to the point of distraction while dancing or frolicking on the beach. She’s also not much of a singer, but she can blow. Her “Be Italian” sequence is probably the best in the entire film. The one moment in which Nine remembers that it is a musical and rallies itself for a show-stopper.

But two women that stand out the most are Penelope Cruz as the needy, desperate mistress, and Marion Cotillard as the long-suffering wife. Cotillard can tell an entire emotional story with a bat of her eyelashes or a curve of her neck or a twitch in her mouth. “Take It All” is another contender for best sequence. And Cruz steams things up in the sexy “Call From the Vatican,” another best-in-show contender. She gets to stretch her comedic acting muscles and provides ample amount of sass and heartbreak.

If they are the best, then, without a doubt, the worst is Kate Hudson. Her character is useless, shoe-horned for no effect or impact upon the story-line and forces upon us the worst song-and-dance number in a long time. “Cinema Italiano” praises the Neo-Realist Italian filmmakers for their flashy style but says nothing of their substance. The awful black and white footage and bad choreography are only the tip of the iceberg. Hudson has obviously not inherited any of her mother’s natural charm, comedic talent or ability to sing and dance. “Cinema Italiano” kills a film and is aggressively awful while the rest of the movie is just mediocre. Nine never recovers.