I’m a big dumbass for not thinking De-Lovely, a movie about Cole Porter, would be a musical. Of course it was a musical, you big dumbass! Not you. Me. I don’t particularly like musicals, so bear that in mind as I review this one.
This is one weird musical. It is actually a self-reflexive musical biopic. Somehow it garnered a PG-13 rating for sexual content. I think the only reason it was rated PG-13 is because there is one scene where a dude smooches another dude. I’ve seen more sexual content during Mass. The movie’s greatest strength is its use of Cole Porter tunes as frames for the actual actions of the man. For people that really love Cole Porter musicals, they’ll hear most of their favorites in this movie. Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd can’t sing. Although in their defence, apparently Cole Porter couldn’t carry a tune in the real world and Ashley Judd looked good enough in her roaring twenties garb that I could ignore her speak-n-say singing.
Most of the other songs were sung by Top-40 artists, Robbie Williams, Natalie Cole, Sheryl Crow, Elvis Costello [OK, maybe he isn’t Top 40]. The musical numbers themselves were a bit schizophrenic. Sometimes all the random folks in the action started dancing and joining in, like typical musicals but most of the time Cole was just in places where there happened to be live music, almost like a music video. Still, the musical numbers were better integrated than in something like Chicago, which I hated every moment.
All in all, it wasn’t a waste of my time, but I have no desire to see it again.