Review of De-Lovely (2004) by Heather B — 31 Jan 2005

[color=white]As I had some bizarre compulsion to see it, and I had very little to do tonight, I decided to watch [i]De-Lovely[/i] on Pay-Per-View.[/color].

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[color=#ffffff]Well, I always start out with the good, and the good is that I really liked the concept and the script. I liked the whole Cole Porter relives his life at a musical thing. I thought that was great. Alanis Morissette and Sheryl Crow give fantasic musical performances. [/color].

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[color=#ffffff]The major disappointment in this film is that it had so much potential to be better than it is, and I blame the director. For instance, some of the effects for aging him back and forth and for transitioning from stage to "real life" were such cop-outs. If they had actually shown the transitions or put in some money towards special effects if would have improved a lot of transitions. Now, the music may be great but a lot of it comes too soon or doesn't entirely fit. Musicals more often than not need to give a long enough break between songs (I suppose this was intentional, he even said it was too soon for a song in the dialogue). They could have used the stage aspect a lot more. Maybe they should have gone for straight biopic, or total musical, but they didn't quite mash this well. Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd give alright performances, but they're both capable of so much more. Elvis Costello looked out of place and was doing this weird, jerky movement that was really distracting, and Diana Krall just looked like she was camera shy and DIDN'T MOVE AT ALL. The whole film makes you feel that if they had just put a little more effort in, it would have been really, really good. [/color].

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[color=#ffffff]The Opinion: At very least it kept my interest for now, but I don't think it's deserving of another watch. [/color].

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