Nine (12A)
- Starring: Kate Hudson, Nicole Kidman, Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Sophia Loren, Stacy Ferguson
- Director: Rob Marshall
- Year: 2009
"Nine" is a vibrant and provocative musical that follows the life of world famous film director Guido Contini as he reaches a creative and personal crisis of epic proportion, while balancing the numerous women in his life including his wife, his mistress, his film star muse, his confidant and costume designer, an American fashion journalist, the whore from his youth and his mother.
Reviews
Alison Rowat's Review
Is there a fishnet stocking left in the world after Rob Marshall’s part musical, all lingerie show?
Nine ramps up the style and borrows its substance from the hit Broadway show of the same name and Fellini’s 8½ a half, with mixed results. There’s a certain fascination in watching Daniel Day-Lewis singing and dancing his way through his role as Guido, famed Italian film director with a love life so complicated he gets exhausted merely thinking about it.
There’s his mistress (Penelope Cruz), his wife (Marion Cotillard) and a besotted journalist (Kate Hudson), plus the memories of all those he has loved and lost. Add to the mix his confidante (Judi Dench) and muse (Nicole Kidman) and Guido is one troubled man. Oh, and he is suffering a creative block. This being a hymn to all things Italian, he suffers in the best possible taste.
There are a few knockout numbers, foremost among them Take it All performed by Cotillard, and Penelope Cruz’s A Call From the Vatican, complete with la Cruz doing the splits.
But, and forgive the hosiery related analogy, where Chicago was seamless the stitching on Nine is all too apparent. Routines stick out like Father Ted and Father Dougal trapped in the bra department, with everything stopping so the songs and dances can be shoehorned in. For fans of musicals, and lingerie, only.