This isn’t just a bad movie, it’s a boring and irrelevant movie with no soul, the kind where you never for a minute forget that you’re sitting in a theatre. There is one honest character in this film, and he’s the villain. The heroes are all self-deluded, deceitful, shallow, little people for whom it is impossible to have any sympathy watching them grub their way through their confused and uninteresting existences. I often found myself looking longingly at the ’EXIT’ signs in the corner of the theatre. At the end, I kept praying for the iceberg to gut their ship- oops, wrong movie, but the same sentiment.
The performances are terrible. Kidman, as Satine, invests her role as the top attraction at a notorious Parisian brothel with all the emotive range of a Barbie doll. McGregor, usually sparkling and energetic on screen, wallows listlessly as Christian, Satine’s vapid boy-toy poet. Leguizamo as Lautrec is ludicrous, as are most of the supporting cast. The guy in the tablecloth is particularly odious.
Kidman not only couldn’t act her part, she couldn’t sing it, either. Her voice, in the high registers of a timid pre-adolescent girl, scrapes the ears. McGregor definitely has a better soprano than his co-star, but as a Scottish tenor, he’s no good, and when the song calls for emotional intensity, he bellows. In one scene where Christian and Satine are engaged in a lovers’ duet of sorts, they seem to be competing to drown out the other. Such lack of intimacy and tenderness between lovers is not convincing of romance. And this may be where the movie fails most badly- there is absolutely no chemistry between these two actors. It’s hard to believe that Christian and Satine even know each other, let alone are passionate lovers. It’s not possible to become engaged in their story because the actors are not engaged in their performances and their singing is making you wince in pain. This romance was not credible and the only regret I felt at the ending was that the Duke’s man missed so many opportunities.
As always with Luhrman’s movies, there’s a lot of colorful cinematography and noise going on, but the story is empty and the characters are mere shadows. There was only one scene I enjoyed, the Roxanne tango, because in its brief moment it told a truly dramatic story, was well-performed, filmed with uncharacteristic subtly. Everything meaningful in the movie was defined in this one scene, although it could have been improved by eliminating those annoying edits back to the tribulations of the main characters.
At the climax of the movie, the aforementioned villain views the mess with a disgusted expression on his face, turns and walks out. I shared his opinion and did the same.
I think it would be better if you go and catch one of Mithun’s movie. I think ’’Shera’’ or ’’Chandaal’’ will be a nice option. Atleast he dances well!