It is said that behind every great man is a woman. Behind Guido Contini, Italian director alternating turnips and masterpieces, there are nine of them (even if at the end of the film, we can only count seven).
The plot? Panic fear of the blank page, anxieties of a filmmaker that critics expect to see, a film that ten days before shooting still has no script and especially an obvious lack of inspiration on the part of Guido, magnificently played by Daniel Day Lewis.
In the midst of an existential crisis, the tormented artist scrolls through the cast of women who, from his childhood to today, have marked his life, influenced him or troubled him, in one way or another.
Under the background of a musical comedy, punctuated by songs cruelly lacking in depth, Nine makes us undergo for nearly two hours a vulgar vaudeville in the Fellinian sauce.
Nicole Kidman, who plays Contini’s star actress, makes a few brief appearances, as does Fergie as the whore of her childhood who would strip for a few coins collected with her classmates. The Black Eyed Peas singer, who is supposed to embody the ultimate Italian fantasy and who turns out to have as much charisma as an oyster (and that’s an understatement), looks more like Pigalle than Cinecittà.
As usual, there is nothing wrong with Marion Cotillard’s performance, touching in the role of a woman deceived and disillusioned by a failed marriage. Marion Cotillard, to whom we owe the only miserable minutes of the film where we don’t worry about whether we should follow the spectators who have been running like rabbits since the beginning of the session.
As for the sparkling Penelope Cruz who completes the couple Cotillard-Day Lewis, she is simply brilliant as a hysterical and capricious mistress, ready to do anything to have the leading role, all with a charm and a humor that saves the film somewhat from the wreck.
Once out of the theater, it is not easy to know who is most to blame: the screenwriter, the lyricists (if there were lyricists) or simply Rob Marshall who has produced a film as empty, useless, as devoid of emotion and depth as this one.
Andrea Ottaviani
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