Review:
In 1960s Italy, a master director tries to recover from two flops, but while everyone is set for his new film, he hasn’t yet written a single word for the script. He examines his decay while being influenced by the seven women who have shaped his life. The best that can be said about the film, based on the Broadway musical, which in turn is based on an Italian musical, which in turn is based on Federico Fellini’s Film 8½, is that it is not as terrible as most reviews make it out to be. It’s a decent enough musical that suffers from an absence of plot and an array of characters that remain bland, which is especially surprising when one considers the acting talent involved.
Random Observations:
Nominated for three Oscars, for Costumes, Art Direction and Penelope Cruz as Best Supporting Actress, which is surprising, considering that the only actress with even a half-way decent performance is Marion Cotillard.
I really, really hate it when people playing foreigners in a film fake their accents. It’s one thing for the Italian to have Italian accents when they speak English, but since all of the dialogue in the film is really in Italian and just translated to English so the viewers can understand it, there is no reason for the fake accents. But that’s not even the worst here. Most accents disappear and reappear throughout the film, most notably Daniel Day-Lewis’, where it is so distracting that his performance apart from this is barely noticeable.
Also annoying: inserting random Italian words into the English dialogue to “add flavour”. Grazie and Prego do not make the film more Italian than Thank You or Please.
Fittingly, the musical number with the title “Nine” that could have actually shed some light on why the film is called that, was cut from the movie version.
Tags: 2009, 8½, American Film, Anthony Minghella, Arthur Kopit, based on previously published material, based on stage musical, Daniel Day-Lewis, Drama, english, Federico Fellini, Fergie, Giuseppe Spitaleri, Judi Dench, Kate Hudson, Marion Cotillard, Maury Yeston, Michael Tolkin, minute movie review, movie review, Movies, musical, Nicole Kidman, Nine, Oscar, Penélope Cruz, Ricky Tognazzi, Rob Marshall, Sophia Loren, Stacy Ferguson