Nine (2009)

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

After seeing "Chicago" and absolutely loving it,i immediately started searching for Rob Marshall's other work.And then i stumbled upon "Nine".From the trailer it seemed quite promising,it looked great and the cast was really surprising.I'd never had thought i'd see Daniel Day-Lewis do a musical.He plays Guido Contini,this Italian movie director who is experiencing a writers/creative block.The movie follows his life and love interests.Gudio Contini wasn't really a likeable character nor did i really care what will happen to him. The other characters like:Guido's wife,his mistress,the leading actress of his upcoming movie and some others,were really bland and totally uninspired. Even the singing/dancing sequences which are the most important parts of a musical are tedious and uninteresting.The only part worth watching is Fergi's "Be Italian" which is fantastic!The cinematography was good,no complaints there. After about 40 minutes in, i was regularly looking at the time because i lost all interest but i did sit through it. I found the movie to be a lackluster mess and i would suggest skipping this one.

Famous film director Guido Contini struggles to find harmony in his professional and personal lives, as he engages in dramatic relationships with his wife, his mistress, his muse, his agent, and his mother. Nine is one of those films where the Cast is great but the final result is not Daniel Day-Lewis seems like he is bored, Marion Cotillard and Penélope Cruz feel out of place, Kate Hudson comes out of nowhere, Fergie, Sophia Loren and Judi Dench have some good overall moments and Nicole Kidman could have been better. The whole musical stuff come out in places where the film doesn't really need any singing plus it's very very thin and complexed at times and it is pretty slow if you ask me. Good Cast and Director but that doesn't say much now does it? [3/10]

It's interesting, this film certainly divides viewers and critics alike, and initially, I understand why. It could be accused of lacking both emotional depth and any underlying point at all. It is heavy on scantily-clad women dancing sexily and giving the impression of having little better to do than to indulge Guido's fantasies. However, what we are seeing is not an objective version of 'real life', but the self-indulgent daydreams of a creatively repressed narcissist, whose greatest regret (as we learn early on in Guido's'striking/comical hymn to his own brilliance) is that there is only one of him. It is a sharp satire about one man's absurdity and the ways in which society, the industry in which he works and the people he surrounds himself with enable him, until they can no longer stand it. As a musical, it is rather fabulous, and yet it often resists easy hooks, which makes it a more thoughtful, less obvious score. It is also comical, quirky and beautifully shot. What's striking about this film is its tone. In fact, it is the tone which is all important, and which is what elevates it about the tawdry mess that it could be. It is slightly aloof (presumably to mimic Guido's own sense of detachment) and maintains a careful balance between allowing the viewer to enjoy Guido's character whilst never quite giving him the benefit of the doubt. Daniel Day-Lewis treads this ground with just the right nuance, allowing the moments of humour and vulnerability to come through whilst maintaining a degree of self-awareness which means that neither he nor the audience is complicit in Guido's bad behaviour. Oh, and the costumes are gorgeous too.

About one year ago, I went to watch a Gujarati play on the theme of 'harrassment of women by their NRI husbands', written and directed by an acquaintance who was pursuing his Postgraduate Degree in Dramatics. As this was a local play with a completely local cast, I decided to bring a buddy along for moral support in case the play stank. Unsurprisingly, the play proved to be a massive disappointment with its crude treatment of the subject matter and ridiculously unnecessary focus on supporting characters (like making the gravedigger the lead in Hamlet). Yet, to my bewilderment, people cheered on and gave it a standing ovation it didn't deserve. I realized later that the antagonist in the play was a very popular name among Gujarati audiences, and so they cheered him on as he hammed endlessly, while I looked on bemused at all the beaming faces around me.When the seven ladies of Nine (Dench, Cotillard, Cruz, Loren, Fergie, Hudson and Kidman) turn up one after the other in the opening musical sequence of Nine, I sat looking at the screen with the same bemused expression, and the question 'What am I supposed to feel here?' crossed my mind. These seven wonderful dames of acting may have caused a flurry of applauses had this been a live play (Nine is originally a Broadway musical), but they little impact when they such a grand entry on film for the simple reason that the entire thing is 'filmed'.I have not seen Fellini's autobiographical classic 8 ½ either (on which both the play and the film are based), although the DVD does wait for me in the cupboard (will follow Mr. Roger Ebert's advice in his review and catch the film tonight). This makes me more alien towards Nine but not too much because I have seen Fellini's 'La Dolce Vita' four times and regard it as one of my favorite movies. So the parts which evoked a sense of familiary were Nicole Kidman's 'ideal woman' character and Daniel Day Lewis' 'detached persona looking for a centre', which Marcello Mastroianni played excellently in LDV. The main question here is: does Nine work as a musical and a movie independently in its own right? The answer is sadly a no.The experience of watching Nine can be compared to visiting 'Marina Abramović's – The Artist is Present' exhibition without having any clue of who she is or what she has done. The film has characters who represent characters of another film but do not distinguish themselves to become characters of THIS film, thereby seeming like wandering apparitions who don't really care about each other or this film. They function like the (actually) moving portraits in the Harry Potter stories; they wink, they smile, they laugh, they cry like humans but in the end, they remain portraits. And the worst part is that they're given such dark and ugly sets to sing and dance around, robbing all the richness off the mise-en-scène. The reason for such unappealing sets is that all the performance pieces are figments of Guido Contini's often prurient imagination. The protagonist suffers from artistic block after two of his films flop following a streak of critical and commercial successes. After one reporter boldly asks him during a press interview whether 'he has nothing to speak about', Contini performs a great escape and books a room for himself at a hotel under a pseudonym. His next movie 'Italia' does not have a script yet and its cast and crew are left stranded without Contini, who spends much of his time at parties and events dreaming and fantasizing about the women in his life. There's angelic Claudia Jennsen: his inspiration, Luisa: his lonely wife, Carla: his sexy mistress, Lilli: his costume designer, Stephanie: an alluring reporter, Saraghina: a prostitute from his childhood, and lastly his Mamma. And unfortunately, everybody gets a number or two to perform (in Contini's mind). This basically goes on in a repetitive manner till the end, where finally the plot decides to move another inch or two.There is not one song I can recollect now, except 'Cinema Italiano' which too stays in mind only because of its irritating hook. The other reason I think the number is easy to remember is that it's got a livelier and brighter set with performances we can actually see. The rest of the numbers are hampered by lack of light; if one has seen Gene Kelly's super-duper-brilliant 'Singin' in the Rain' he or she would remember the incredibly colorful sets and lighting which instantly evokes the performances to memory. The performers themselves in Nine do not impress us for most part. Fergie, Dench and Cottilard know how to 'sell a performance'; Fergie as most would know is an established singer-performer while Dench has a grande damme showstopper charm. Cruz is predictably sexy (with delectable bosoms) while sex-goddess Loren is motherly. And what about the man of the house: Mr. Daniel Day Lewis?Oh, what a disappointment. Bringing a characteristic method approach to become Guido Contini, Lewis fails to get the 'performance element' that protagonists of a musical require that too in plenty. And I remember actress Meryl Streep telling in her interview with James Lipton that 'she added the element of performance in her acting after being mesmerized by one of Lisa Minelli's performances'; watch 'Mamma Mia' and you'll get what she means. Actors in a musical should have the ability of selling themselves through their characters. Gene Kelly does it best. Lewis however buries himself deep within his character and makes his whole act damn gloomy. And he ain't that good a singer either. Neither is he as addictive and infectious as Streep, who radiates even in her worst films. In fact, Lewis on a bad day digs the grave for his character and the whole film. That's a tragedy.