It could have been a love story

Rating: 4/10 (14 September 2002)

Note: This commentary contains spoilers for "Moulin Rouge".
"Moulin Rouge" is one of those films that one is not certain how to rate. While it is clever in concept and visually rich, the plot lacks substance, relying on a sugar-coated set of "true bohemian" tenants to tell what is essentially a hackneyed boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl story. It's also historically annoying, lousing up with its portrayal of the privileged fin-de-siecle artist Toulouse-Lautrec as a starving writer/performer, but succeeding with a number of coy David Bowie references.
Yet its most frustrating aspect is its inability or refusal to create audience sympathy for Satine (played by Nicole Kidman), the actress-prostitute who abandons her credo of love for money only to have a fling with the poor poet Christian (played by Ewan McGregor). Certainly she is pretty, certainly she is sexy, but when she gives up all for love during a song montage, the audience doesn't yet have a real reason to care about her-we simply haven't had enough time alone with her away from the lights and color. Ewan McGregor is more successful as her lover, but he acted a much finer love affair with Jonathan Rhys-Meyers in "Velvet Goldmine". Indeed, "Velvet Goldmine" is a good picture to measure "Moulin Rouge" against, since it too tells a splashy, sexy rock-and-roll love story, but manages to do it with sure style and real sentiment, things "Moulin Rouge" only grasps after.