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| De-Lovely |
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  (7/10)
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Runtime: 125 |
| Public Rating: 6.00 (22 votes) |
Director: Irwin Winkler |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Musical bio |
Year: 2004 |
| Writer(s): Jay Cocks |
| Distributor: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
| Reviewed by: William Sternman |
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Cole Porter loved words. He loved their meanings and their shades of meaning and their subtle connotations that could belie their meanings. He believed in finding just the precise word to convey exactly what he wanted to say. He would never fell back on one over- and misused word (“awesome”) for every occasion. He could call something “delightful” or “delicious” instead. And if the English language didn’t contain a word that suited his purpose, he’d invent one. Like “de-lovely.”
What’s more, he could titillate your fancy without groping you.
For example:
Electric eels, I might add do it,
Though it shocks ‘em, I know.
Why ask if shad do it?
Waiter, bring me shad roe.
(For those of you who agree with me that Noël Coward’s parody outdoes the master, I feel compelled to point out that if there hadn’t been a master, there wouldn’t have been a parody.)
Porter also loved music and the many moods you could create with it—from reflective to exuberant, from melancholy to joyous, from sober to sassy. No two Porter songs ever sounded alike and no Porter song ever sounded like any other composer’s songs. Nor did his music remind you of a toddler clanging a spoon on a pot.
When you sang a Porter song, you didn’t have to screech at the top of your lungs into an over-amplifying mike. People stopped what they were doing and saying to savor his wit and sophistication, and his humanity.
If only Jay Cocks’s screenplay had been as de-lovely as Porter’s music. Alas, like a contemporary song, every scene is almost exactly like the scene that came before. Everybody goes to a dazzling celebrity party. Someone sings a Cole Porter song. Cole makes out with some gorgeous hunk. Linda Porter understands. Then—guess what?—everybody goes to another dazzling celebrity party. (It made me think of Melina Mercouri’s tagline to her retelling of the Medea tragedy in Never on Sunday: “They all went to the seashore together.” If only.)
As a matter of fact, there are so many celebrities introduced at the beginning of the movie that I gave up trying to keep track of them. I recognized Monty Woolley (Allan Corduner) by his beard. If only the Nathan Lane look-alike had been playing Lane himself, I’d have known who he was too.
There’s a frame narrative in which Porter as an old man sees his life story presented as a musical comedy. I was irritated every time it interrupted the main story, until I realized there was no main story to interrupt. Then I counted my blessings as never before.
Cocks even stoops to using one of the hoariest chestnuts in the show-business canon: the single spot of blood on the otherwise immaculate white dress that foretells the wearer’s tragic death. I thought that little tearjerker went out with Camille.
The next-to-the-last scene (which should been the last) is an exuberant and moving tribute to Porter by the entire cast to the tune of one of his most rousing songs. (You’ll finally understand who the hell Gabe, played by Jonathan Pryce, is.) This is the first time since Fields of Dreams that old ironsides here has been moved to tears by a movie.
Like the last guest who doesn’t know that the party is over, the movie overstays its welcome with a final scene that takes the edge off the bittersweet tribute.
As Cole Porter, Kevin Kline doesn’t have much to do but act wanly charming. Only at the end, as an embittered and crippled old man, does he get some meaty scenes to sink his acting teeth into.
As his wife, Ashley Judd doesn’t have much of a character to work with either. But she doesn’t need one. She’s dazzling, she’s delightful, she’s delicious. In a word, she’s de-lovely.
© William Sternman, July 20, 2004.
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