Well Deserved Praise

The greatest movie ever made..!

A Major Disappointment

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Kevin Kline. A Prolific, Mesmerizing Actor, Who Proves His Status Once Again by delivering a BRILLIANT Performance as composer Cole Porter in 'De-Lovely'. The Oscar-Winning Actor elevates this biopic with the sheer power of his performance.'De-Lovely' Synopsis: Inspecting a magical biographical stage musical, composer Cole Porter reviews his life and career with his wife, Linda.As a biopic, 'De-Lovely' explores the Journey of Cole Porter, with sincerity. Jay Cocks's Screenplay Nicely Executes the entire journey of the talented personality. Irwin Winkler's Direction is under-stated. The Songs are wonderfully sung.Performance-Wise: As Mentioned Before, Kline delivers a BRILLIANT Performance as Cole Porter. The Versatile Actor is at his very best! Ashley Judd as his wife Linda, is equally terrific & compliments Kline in every level. Jonathan Pryce supports well. Kevin McNally & Sandra Nelson are perfect. Others lend good support.On the whole, 'De-Lovely' is a good film, with a sterling performance by Kline.

Cole Porter's music was great and Cole Porter was brilliant. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for this movie. A musical should be upbeat; this movie is ponderous. The musical numbers are fine; Kevin Kline is absolutely marvelous as Cole Porter, but when the movie becomes a biopic it becomes stagy, melodramatic and slow and the music becomes secondary, which is baffling since the movie is a musical. It's one thing to inject moments of sadness in the story; it is another thing to make those moments the cornerstone of a musical which is supposed to be upbeat, not downbeat. A musical should have the audience leaving the theater humming the tunes, not feeling sorry for the composer. Moreover, regarding Cole Porter's sexuality: who cares? He wrote and performed songs; he was a bard, a modern day troubadour. With whom he cavorted is entirely irrelevant to his accomplishments as a performer. This movie would have been much more entertaining if it had devoted more time to the music, downplayed the personal stuff and ended with a bunch of upbeat songs. Hollywood had it right when the cast Cary Grant to play Cole Porter in 1946. Unfortunately, despite the marvelous music and Kevin Kline's superb performance, the same cannot be said for this movie. Let the music speak for itself.The movie would have done much more justice to Mr. Porter if it had not relegated his songs to the background. His life was about music and music was his life. Like everyone, he had his personal issues but why dwell on that? Cole Porter was more than just a songwriter. He was a producer, composer, impresario, soldier, athlete and entertainer. He exuded joy, spread happiness and made people feel good through his work. His songs today are not only classics, they are icons for an entire culture. And this was recognized while Mr. Porter was still alive. Well-deserved accolades were expressed during his career. He became a living legend. Along with Irving Berlin and George M. Cohan, Cole Porter was top of the line, the best, the epitome of artistic quality.Here's a few items about Mr. Porter life that the movie leaves out: He was born and raised in Indiana. He wrote over 300 songs while in college. He received musical training at Harvard. He was a musical prodigy as a child. He served in the French Foreign Legion.If the judged sole by music, the movie rates a 10. However, for reasons noted above, it has been given an overall rating of 8.

Brilliantly staged, superb performances by Kevin Kline and Jon Pryce, and those great Cole Porter songs (the reason for buying the DVD). And yet this film is profoundly strange, lurching between musical and biopic, as ambivalent as Porter's sexual orientation. Screenwriter Jay Cock's tone-deaf dialogue saps critically-needed energy from the film while characters stop the action to deliver formal speeches rather fire clever quips from the hip. But what can we expect from a film-critic-turned screenwriter? De Lovely needs more stacatto Hollywood dialogue that matches the style, grace, and elegance of the art direction and cast performances. DeLovely is actually 2 films at war with one another: an elegant, snappy musical versus a dull, literary biopic. And the winner is the musical.

This is one of the most ambitious musicals I've seen in a long while. It openly challenges the rules & format of every standard musical you've ever seen (as with the irony of the quote in my title), and it even goes so far as to challenge the distinction between what we see on screen vs. what's going on backstage--breaking down the proverbial "4th wall" to include the audience while at the same time setting up 4 new walls to distance us even further from the action. It's very, very cleverly done. At times you wonder if the film is all a joke, a dream or some some bizarre Ebeneezer Scrooge visitation by Xmas spirits. That, to me, is what surrealism should be about. Not just crazy random images à la Luis Buñuel's early work, but taking the audience to a level somewhere above reality and below total fantasy.Warning, though. This film requires a great deal of patience. I almost shut it off twice in the first 45 mins because I didn't catch the point of it all. And not being well versed in the music of Cole Porter nor interested in lifestyles of the 40s rich & famous, I came >>this close<< to ejecting the disc and watching reruns of I Dream of Jeannie instead. But I'm glad I stuck around.Cole Porter, as portrayed, is not necessarily a likable character. His brazen infidelity and elitist attitude will offend the puritans amongst us. His homosexual escapades will undoubtedly freak out guys who aren't comfortable with the subject (hence the low IMDb rating? I'm just guessing). But by the time it's over, I guarantee he will have hit some kind of chord with everyone. Whether that's due to Kevin Klein's excellent performance or something more subtle & thematic, I don't know.Ashley Judd is absolutely amazing. This is the first time I saw her as a legitimate actor, not just a musician-crossover-actor-wannabe. In fact it was Ashley's dynamic performance that got me over the hump of boredom/confusion I mentioned earlier.The music - sort of a mixed review here. Although I'm an Alanis Morissette fan, I don't think her vocal style, with its excessive vibrato & modern twang, complimented the nostalgic era depicted in the film. So we lose points there. Similarly, Elvis Costello stuck out as being a bit too stylish for the dated material. On the other hand, Cheryl Crow delivers a beautiful, haunting version of "Begin the Beguine". Natalie Cole was OK. Ashley Judd herself sings one song, and I thought it was very memorable. And Kevin Klein--great job (though cleverly, we are told up front that Cole Porter never had a great singing voice. That gets Kev off the hook). Overall, good music. If I were more familiar with Cole Porter tunes, I'm sure I would like it even more.Well, here I am wrapping up another long-winded review. And as always, if you read all the way through this, then I think you have the patience to handle a complex film like this. Enjoy it!