De-Lovely

This film looks well and has several performances, both dramatic and musical, that are worthy of note. Of the latter in fact Elvis Costello and Natalie Cole in particular came off very well. My biggest beef, however, was with Sheryl Crow's performance of "Begin the Beguine." I haven't heard or read it commented upon so apparently it wasn't noticed that she didn't sing the melody nor did the arrangement follow the fairly complex chord structure that Cole Porter wrote. Taking liberties in jazz is one thing. It's common practice among jazz musicians to take interpretative flights far from the source material and yet still stay fairly close to the general structure and melodic line. In this travesty of a straight, non-jazz performance Ms. Crow quite simply didn't sing the tune as written and the arrangement fairly clobbered the carefully structured co-relation of major and minor chords, altered notes leading to secondary dominants and shifts of key and melody that lead to the tune's climax and denouement. I suppose it's some sort of comment on the general unfamiliarity with popular song of the golden age of Broadway in general and Cole Porter in particular that is to blame but it seems a pity that someone somewhere along the line didn't call her on this. It's plainly and flatly wrong and she should have been told.

I'm sure everyone involved had the best intentions, but WHAT a disappointment! This is one of those unfortunate movies that makes the viewer ask, WHAT WERE THESE PEOPLE THINKING - WHO GREEN-LIGHTED THIS THING? I was ready to leave after half an hour. The entire format of the movie was so irritating, and it was neither history nor biography. Real figures such as Sara and Gerald Murphy were included but never explained,nor was Monte Woolley - and as for what they did to L.B. Mayer with "Be a Clown" - well, Mayer's family should sue - obviously Fred Astaire's family wisely refused permission to have him portrayed in the film, which is why somebody named 'Jack' over-sings "Night and Day". As the older Porter, Kevin Kline's makeup resembled nothing so much as Jim Backus as Thurston Howell on "Gilligan's Island." This movie really doesn't give the viewer a sense of Porter's place in musical theater history - for instance, he had five hits with Ethel Merman alone, and really had about as much to do with the real Porter as the earlier "Night And Day" did - they were simply able now to show his "other interests". And at least that movie had Mary Martin recreating "My Heart Belongs To Daddy" - who does this movie have? I knew when I heard some of the songs on the website that there would be trouble - todays performers simply don't know how to put over a Cole Porter song - they all either try too hard (like the awful Ethel Merman impersonation), or are completely out of their league (Elvis Costello?????) or, like Sheryl Crow, never even get near Cole Porter's exquisite melody. The only reason I don't rate this movie an absolute "0" is because the production values were good - the photography included some very nice time-transitions, and the costumes were lovely.

A stinker of the highest order. Don't know where to begin really, but as Julie Andrews once said, let's start at the very beginning... Well, the structure of De-Lovely is risible - ancient Cole (clearly on death's door) watches his life re-enacted on a cheesy stage by a group of 3rd-rate thesps and a very uncomfortable-looking Jonathan Pryce as MC. When we are mercifully taken away from this bargain basement Bretchtian nightmare, it is only to face one dreadful song and dance routine after another. Famous singers are shown in a poor light (Mick Hucknell can't sing a note in tune - shocker, eh?) in woefully inauthentic interpretations of Porter classics. What were the producers thinking of? The film is clearly aimed at gramdmas, but what they get are singers of the caliber of Lemar warbling tunelessly in 21st century settings. The film's handling of Porter's homosexuality is a bit of a joke, too. We get the odd scene in which we get to know that he has an eye for the boys, but the film likes to think that it's a romance between Porter and his wife, Linda (Ashley Judd in comedy latex make-up). I could go on, but I suspect that you've got the point. A film for the undiscriminating.

As I think of the many dimensions documentaries have taken recently, from the ersatz 'Fahrenheit' to the authentic 'Metallica,' I am pleased to report the biopic remains whole, with Irwin Winkler's ('Life as a House') 'De-Lovely,' the life in song about Cole Porter and his wife, Linda. I say 'in song' because barely a moment in not accompanied by Porter's music so recognizable I can cite 'Night and Day,' 'In the Still of the Night,' 'Anything Goes,' 'Let's Misbehave,' and 'True Love' without research help or the least provocation. Kevin Kline plays Porter with 1920's tuxedoed charm embracing the true love of his life, Linda, and the many men who helped him fulfill his need to love everything. Kline's refusal to lip-synch or take singing lessons effectively evokes the voice-challenged Porter and the passionate melancholy of a composer who lived for love. The difference between this version and the 1946 Cary Grant 'Night and Day' is in the hidden homosexuality of the latter and the overt acceptance in the former. Winkler recreates the moment when Linda acknowledges, accepts, and romanticizes Porter's alternative life. About men she affirms, 'You like them more than I do. Nothing is cruel if it fulfills your promise.' This is fine writing by Jay Cocks ('Age of Innocence') and is her love expressed on a plane only Plato could fully appreciate. Thus Linda defines a story about love as music, a story attempted in 'Evita' and 'Frida' but never so well expressed as in 'De-Lovely.' Although 'Frida' parallels Frida Kahlo's artful life in her paintings, 'De-Lovely' so arranges Porter's music as to suggest each piece was written for that moment in his life. Judd's portrayal relies on her porcelain beauty, wry smile, and serene wisdom in the service of an unconditional love that cost Linda in embarrassment, extorted money, and time away from Porter. Songs interpreted by Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow, and Diana Krall, among others, bring the film into the present with the 'timeless' effect without compromising flawless period depiction of the Jazz Age and Tin Pan Alley. In the end this biopic helped me understand the rewarding and demanding life of Cole Porter, gave me over two hours of glorious song and dance, and made me see again the allure of true love that transcends sex and ego. 'De-Lovely' is 'music from a farther room,' as Eliot's Prufrock would have heard it.

source: De-Lovely

A few of us lingered in the theatre as the last credits rolled, and then I wanted to rush out and buy a Cole Porter Song Book! The story avoids his real life predilection for rough sex when he and Monte would go out on the town for a "f.....ing" night. Although I found the actors believable, especially Ashley Judd, something is missing. I wonder what another director would have done with this story. The jumping back and forth between old Cole and the making of the musical didn't work for me. And too much editing. But those songs are worth the price of admission. I enjoyed Morrissette, and the scene between Porter and the actor who didn't want to sing "Night and Day" was especially powerful.

I thought I would never see a biopic of Cole Porter as bad as "Night and Day" starring Cary Grant and Alexis Smith. I was wrong, dead wrong. "De Lovely" makes "Night and Day" look like "Casablanca" or "Gone With The Wind" in comparison!! It is just awful. It is completely unreliable as a biography of Cole and Linda Porter. Chronologically, the movie is all screwed up and wrong. Worst of all is Kevin Kline's performance as Cole. To begin with, Cole was a small man. This movie should have used someone like Joel Grey or someone of that statue. And Cole was a big homo and had absolutely no interest in women at all. Linda was more like a mother to Cole and certainly not a lover. And the script is trite and sentimental and grossly incorrect. Won't somebody please make an honest biopic of this great composer's life? Please!!

This was one of the most disappointing movies of 2004. The two main things wrong with this movie are as follows: the screenplay is NOT true to Cole Porter's life story, and some of the vocal and musical performances are truly terrible. Cole Porter was homosexual. Yes, we are aware that, for a huge bulk of his adult life, he was married. To a woman. The film "De-Lovely" attempts to make out the married life of Cole and Linda Lee Porter as if this were some classic Hollywood love story. The whole POINT of their marriage, was that it was a platonic marriage of convenience. Linda Lee had escaped and divorced her physically abusive husband, which was major scandal territory in the 1910's, and married Cole with the sole intention of escaping her murderous, and physically violent ex-spouse. Linda Lee was nine years OLDER than Cole. In the film, Ashley Judd appears to be at least thirty years YOUNGER than Kevin Kline, and the entire film makes out their marriage to be some never-ending romance in the fading sunset. This WASN'T the case! This wasn't the true story! "De-Lovely" makes Cole Porter out to be bi-sexual, which he wasn't. Linda Lee, in real life, was probably fully aware of her second husband's sexual extra-marital entourages, and in real life, she probably couldn't have cared less. In the 1910's and 1920's, this marriage of convenience meant a new life to Linda Lee, and that was the extent of it. Apart from Natalie Cole and Robbie Williams, the majority of the musical performances are dreadful. Natalie Cole sings a lovely rendition of "Every Time We Say Goodbye," and Robbie Williams likewise sings a fine noteworthy performance of the title song, "De-Lovely," but the rest of the singers are anywhere from barely tolerable to truly dreadful. My advice is - check the soundtrack out from the public library. This flick is for die-hard Kevin Kline fans only.

I say "Delirious", because evidently, the people involved in this mess must've been just that. This ill conceived, miscast, puerile piece of garbage has very little to do with the late Mr. Porter's actual life and even less to do with his music. The movie even admits on a certain level that it's a fake by using footage from another horribly miscast biopic about Cole Porter, starring Cary Grant and Alexis Smith! Another review I've read mentions that: "At the first night parties there seemed a disproportionately high number of black people as guests, and also in other scenes." Historical documentation supports that Cole Porter's life, especially while in New York, was more integrated than a casual observer might think. On the contrary, there were many black people who attended the late Mr. Porter's, shall we say..."Night Parties". Primarily Black male prostitutes whom he patronized at the Harlem brothels he frequented. A few, even served as inspiration for some of his more popular songs. This isn't the only bone of contention I have with this movie. Much of the movie's music is taken out of context, not only chronologically, but also stylistically and logistically. He wrote songs for key reasons at key times. The very woman, who was supposed to have inspired this movie, also was reported to have given the song "De-lovely", its name. This is referenced in many notable biographies of Cole Porter. If you actually want to know about his real life and his REAL music, go to the library and read for yourself about the actual person. Then, start by listening to his music. Ella Fitzgerald's Cole porter songbook serves as an excellent introduction. And if you're still intrigued, there are actual recordings of the late Mr. Porter playing and singing his own music. If you're reading this, you've obviously got online access, so do yourself a huge favor, start by visiting some of the online multi-media, book and music outlets and enter his name in a search. For the time investment of a few simple key-strokes and mouse clicks, you'll be able to learn and truly appreciate more about Cole Porter, his life, his music and his genius, than this blanched, consumptive Kevin Kline vehicle could ever hope to provide.

The device of using a mystical figure showing Cole Porter a retrospect of his life is just too stagey for a movie. Plus it's been done so many times before that it's trite. The story line omits the struggle that Porter endured when he began composing professionally, when his melodies and lyrics were too original and too sophisticated for the public at the time. For anyone who knows Porter's biography, you'll see how highly fictionalized this film is. In today's world, when the unvarnished truth about a person's life can be told, why must this film hold back? Why must dates, events, people and places be altered? Porter didn't "swing both ways". He was a ravenous homosexual. The story line of the Porters devotion to each other was pure hogwash. She was his willing beard at a time when a man needed a female escort for appearances. Obviously the, filmmakers felt that Porter's life had to be sanitized for the public. It irks me to see songs taken out of chronological order and out of the context of the shows for which they were written. Two examples: at the beginning of the film, Porter is singing "Well Did You Evah?" as though the song were written in the 1920s, when it was composed much later; and singing "You'd Be So Easy To Love" to Linda in a Paris park, when that song was written for the film "Born To Dance" (1935), many years later. The casting is wrong. As much as I like Kevin Kline, a 57-year-old actor (at the time) playing a 25 or 35-year-old Porter is just unbelievable. There is no amount of make-up that could make Kline look 25 or 35, or hide his sagging 50-ish jowls and neck. Furthermore, Porter was a small man and Kline is reputedly 6'2". This is like having Tom Selleck portray Danny DeVito. Maybe someday someone will make a true biographical film about Cole Porter.