By Todd McCarthy. Beginning its giant promo push with the opening-night slot at the Cannes Film Festival, 20th Century Fox will get plenty of publicity mileage out of the exploitable musical and fashion elements as well as stars Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor, and many buffs and musical fans will respond positively. Popular on Variety. Strictly in terms of musical razzle-dazzle, Luhrmann outstrips anything Hollywood has produced in years and now bears comparison to the likes of Busby Berkeley in his ability to conceptualize and physically energize production numbers.
Luhrmann applies his feverish imagination even to the presentation of the opening logo, as the widescreen is filled by a red curtain that is gradually drawn back to reveal the Fox trademark to the accompaniment of an onscreen conductor leading the familiar fanfare.
Worse, though, is the fact that Satine is dying, of that classic 19th-century disease consumption. Prone to fainting spells and coughing up blood, she spends every possible moment with Christian, avoiding her command performances with the increasingly agitated Duke while helping Christian, along with Toulouse-Lautrec and his comic-relief cohorts, to write the opening attraction for the new theater, an epic musical that neatly reflects the ongoing melodrama of the Christian-Satine-Duke triangle.
For all the effectiveness of the storytelling, which despite its musical and visual flamboyance is nicely balanced overall between song-driven narrative and dramatic scenes, the love story never truly takes on a life of its own that rouses viewer emotion and becomes moving in its own right. This is not at all the fault of the performers, who throw themselves into their roles with abandon and deliver with enthusiasm to burn.
McGregor is the real surprise, however, as he energetically bares more honest emotion than he ever has onscreen and reveals an outstanding voice all thesps did their own live singing.
