De-Lovely

 

Picture: B-     Sound: B-     Extras: B-     Film: B-

 

 

Irwin Winkler began in film as a major producer, starting back in 1967 with Double Trouble, one of the last Elvis Presley “Musicals” with some of the oddest moments.  He went on quickly to produce hits and classics like Sidney Pollack’s They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969), Stuart Hagmann’s counterculture Strawberry Statement (1970), Richard Fleischer’s New Centurions, Michael Winner’s The Mechanic, Irwin Kershner’s Up The Sandbox (all 1972), Philip Kaufmann’s The Right Stuff (1984), the Rocky franchise and three of Martin Scorsese’s best-ever films: New York, New York, Raging Bull and Goodfellas.  It shows a rare range of being able to produce significant, mature works, as well as the more common, formulaic crowd-pleasers and even the first Rocky was an Academy Award winner.

 

When he went out to become a director on his own, he began with an underrated film on the Hollywood witch-hunts of the 1950s called Guilty By Suspicion (1991), followed by a smart remake of the Film Noir classic Night & The City the following year.  When they did not go well, he went the more commercial route with the Sandra Bullock vehicle The Net (1995) and has not recovered directorially since.  At First Sight (1999) and Life As A House (2001) were more ambitious attempts to do a better film with commercial viability, but De-Lovely (2004) is the most ambitious yet, ultimately getting into all kinds of problems of its own nevertheless.

 

Despite having writer Jay Cocks on board, the film is just too long and drawn out, doing everything we have seen before in previous biopics.  Even Cocks and Winkler site several films where near-death/angel situations are used for the artist to look back at one’s life in flashback.  They fail to note Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz (1980, reviewed elsewhere on this site) did this more recently and far more effectively.  Then there is the cast.

 

Kevin Kline is a fine actor, but I was never convinced that he was Cole Porter, no matter what he said, did, or what era of his life he was playing.  The opening sequence has him as two versions, feeling like a bad version of the final moments of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), but nowhere near as memorable.  If such a pretense was dumped, this could have become more focused on the actual story.  That he was a man who dodged the press and kept a “scandalous” lifestyle is only brushed on.  We never learn much about his character, even with some of the restrictions imposed for them to use the original songs.

 

Points to Ashley Judd for doing a role other than the formula pseudo-thrillers that are killing her once promising career, but the film is too narrow in scope and feel to really capture the life of the great composer and no supporting cast can cut through that problem.  A list of facts strung together as storytelling is not storytelling and one ultimately does not feel transported to the era.  Maybe less “lovely” and more edge would have helped here, but it was a nice try.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image was shot by the great Tony Pierce-Roberts, B.S.C., who brings a properly aged look to the film throughout and makes it easier to sit through.  If only the rest of the film came across as authentic.  I would even argue that this DVD transfer, as good as it is, cannot capture all the subtlety, nuance and detail intended.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is not bad, but considering the music is comprised of so many classics, one wishes it were better played overall.  Unfortunately, Winkler allows the MTV sensibility to take over and has a slew of currently popular vocalists (Natalie Cole (again?), Sheryl Crow, Robbie Robertson, Mick Hucknall of Simply Red, Diana Krall, Elvis Costello and Vivian Green getting the best cover in) feels more like a bad covers album than good music.  Just singing Porter does not make for good Porter.  In everything from better Peter Bogdanovich films (What’s Up Doc?, The Thing Called Love, The Cat’s Meow) and Agatha Christie films (Evil Under The Sun (1982) in particular), Porter has been much better served.  We will not complain here about the lack of DTS in this case.

 

Extras include two audio commentaries by Winkler: one with Kline, the other with Cocks.  Two Anatomy Of A Scene segments, two featurettes, deleted scenes that never help, a trailer for this and a few other MGM DVDs, and a plug for the soundtrack are the extensive extras.  Unfortunately, none of them suggest a better direction the film could have taken.  Unless you are very curious or will watch anything with or about Porter, De-Lovely is still bound to disappoint.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo