De-Lovely
Director: Irwin Winkler. Cast: Kevin Kline, Ashley Judd, Jonathan Pryce, Kevin McNally, Sandra Nelson, Richard Dillane,
Allan Corduner, Keith Allen, Peter Polycarpou, John Barrowman, Kevin McKidd, Edward Baker-Duly, James Wilby, Robbie Williams, Lemar,
Elvis Costello, Alanis Morissette, Caroline O'Connor, Sheryl Crow, Mick Hucknall, Diana Krall, Vivian Green, Lara Fabian,
Mario Frangoulis, Natalie Cole. Screenplay: Jay Cocks.
Here is a short list of things that, all else being equal, I prefer not to have in my movies:
Biographic impulses - The slavish wish to "get it right" can be just as bad as the flagrant refusal to do so
Kevin Kline - Too often a preening actor, and shies away too often from his gifts as an absurdist comedian
Irwin Winkler - Director/perpetrator of Life as a House, which showed Kline to worst possible advantage
Musical numbers - There are several musicals I adore, but it's still not a genre I approach expecting to like
Ashley Judd - Hot stuff a decade ago, when she was blowzy and natural; too stiff and self-repeating of late
Extended flashbacks - You need a really bold, sharp filmmaker to avoid making this device an easy and distracting crutch
Rich socialites - Modern American movies have so little sense of class relations, these aristocratic gigs are often just costume parties
Janty Yates - The Gladiator costume designer, who tends to go over the top in a joyless, cluttered way
Semi-gayness - Not a synonym for bisexuality, but for the attempt to cash in on gay caché without being willing to face the real music
Death as a personified character - If you ain't doing Bergman, or at least crazily costumed like Jessie Lange in All That Jazz, stay away!
That's a pretty formidable list of prejudices to take into De-Lovely, and if I hadn't had a chance to see the thing
for free, I would have stayed away, crossing my fingers that the art directors or somebody didn't snag an Oscar nod next
January (because I hate it when I miss an Oscar nominee). And isn't life just a funny thing, because I thought De-Lovely
earned its name, elegant, emotional, and proudly sentimental without melting into mush. The story is indeed narrated from
the point of view of the aged Cole Porter's rendezvous with Death's emissary, who must be a swishy kind of angel, or just a
notably compassionate one, because he treats the fading composer to a Broadway-style reenactment of his whole life, mostly
enacted by the real folks. As De-Lovely set up this device, the little Geiger counter in my head that's always measuring
for signs of oncoming treacle was going absolutely insane. But of all people, Kline proves a savior, eschewing the temptation
to play Cole as a saint or a cad or a protean figure of the art inside all of us, and instead he gives us a debonair gentleman
who's also a little full of himself, a gentle charmer who gets snippy the minute something isn't working.
During the main
action of De-Lovely, when Jay Cocks' screenplay takes us through the looking-glass of the theatrical conceit and
basically delivers a routine biopic, we get the picture immediately that Cole is one of those hypocrites who covers up his
wish to control everything and be the center of everyone's attention, precisely by projecting a disinterested air of casual
genius and by lavishing attention on others in a way that inevitably reflects well on himself. This is a tricky way to live
life that routinely yields a few hot moments and long periods of ease, but it always goes wrong, and for Cole and his wife
Linda (Judd), it does indeed go pretty wrong. Not disastrously, but enough: Linda's intention of tolerating Cole's non-monogamous,
bisexual appetites really is too much to concede, although thankfully, the tone of the movie manages to view Cole's narcissism
and Linda's willing self-martyrdom as human failings, not as sins or moral parables. De-Lovely includes enough of the
Porters' private strife that we understand it was there, and we gather the basic reasons why, but it also devotes itself to
reminding us of how much Cole delighted his audiences (including himself), how joyously he lived (until the final, severe years
of his life, succinctly but powerfully evoked here), and how beautiful was his art.
There is just no denying these songs, and though the decision to cast popular entertainers of our own moment as the crooners
and chanteuses bringing the Porter catalogue to life is almost certainly a concession to middle-class ticket-buyers, the majority
of these recitals go swimmingly. Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow, Alanis Morissette, and Robbie Williams all look like they're h
having a ball while tackling something they know to be difficult, and that's exactly where these performers should be in
relation to the material. It also seems to be the film's best guess at the ethos of Porter's life—having a ball while tackling
something difficult—so the tenor of big talent getting pushed out of their normal range works just fine. The less well-known
singers fare at least as well, especially Caroline O'Connor, the tango-dancing vixen from Moulin
Rouge, who nails "Anything Goes" with Merman-esque pizzazz. John Barrowman also has a minor triumph (at least to my
totally untrained ears) with "Night and Day," a performance that is diegetically incorporated into the film such that Kline's
composer is trying to coax Barrowman's reluctant and frustrated tenor into the right mood for singing the song. The two
actors make this scene an exquisite moment within the overall structure of De-Lovely, infusing the process of artistic
creation and expressive mastery with a blooming aura of erotic interest. There is nothing coy about the performances or the
hypnotized camerawork. The rest of the film oscillates between, on the one hand, a predictable imbalance in depicting Cole's straight
marriage compared to his same-sex affairs and, on the other, an admirable insistence that Cole's sexuality may well have
exceeded simple and political categories of gay and straight; the purity of Kline's and Barrowman's central bit of musical
and sensual rapport is enough to confirm that De-Lovely's head and heart are both in the right place, wherever that
actually is.
That's pretty much how it goes for De-Lovely, dodging between insight and impenetrability, inspiration and cliché,
elegance and prurience. Though the framing device may seem like a cop-out means for excusing any possible detour into fantasy,
reality, or self-censorship, the successive returns to the old Cole observing this revue of his life actually do lend a strong
point-of-view to what would inevitably be a conjectural and self-involved storyline. The lighting and design teams manage to
achieve the required elegance while preserving the feel of a really good dress rehearsal; we never forget, exactly, that everyone
on screen is in costume and loosely in character, which is what this script necesssitates. The editor shows a marvelous
instinct for when to bring us close into Cole's face and when to keep us away from him, so that several broadly written scenes
of courtship and conflict are saved by their delicate balance of Cole's and Linda's perspectives: it's part of why the film
ends up feeling so compassionate toward both, even as we realize the contributions of each toward their shared moments of
misery. Of course, there's not much to cut on or cut to if the performance isn't there. Had Kline given less of himself to
the part, the movie would certainly not have worked, but the subtle detailing of his facial expressions, the way he self-consciously
wears his clothes and adjusts his posture, the way he warbles Porter's songs with the out-of-tune mediocrity of most great
composers—all of this makes Porter a believable and well-rounded figure, perfectly integrated into the script's particular
vision. For her part, Judd didn't quite bowl me over, but she does just fine, and when she and Kline share a final duet of "In
the Still of the Night," this big-hearted movie finds its fitting close, both soaring and sad. De-Lovely is a film I
can imagine the Porters enjoying, and also one that might occasionally make them uncomfortable. It isn't great cinema, but
it's deft popular art, and as Cole famously said, it does get under your skin. Grade:B