This film will simply dazzle you.

Rating: 10/10 (10 June 2002)

Forget everything you thought you knew about the Hollywood musical. Forget anyone who ever said that the musical was dead; that it was a relic of the past, and that reviving it was a recipe for disaster.

Baz Luhrmann never listens to people like that anyway, and Moulin Rouge - his latest in a career seemingly based on flying in the face of conventional wisdom - is a stunning masterpiece of visual and musical achievement, and richly deserved all the accolades it received as one of the best films of 2001.
Set in 1900, Moulin Rouge tells the story of Christian (Ewan MacGregor), a struggling writer who falls in with a group of Bohemian actors and tries to sell a show to the owner of the famed Paris nightclub Moulin Rouge, Harold Zidler (Jim Broadbent). To get his pitch heard, Christian approaches the most desired courtesan in the club, Satine (Nicole Kidman), and while he finds himself smitten by the girl's obvious charms, is competing for her heart with the Duke of Monroth (Richard Roxburgh), whom Zidler is wooing as an investor in the Moulin Rouge.
Basically, it's a formula plot straight from the grand musicals of the fifties - girl must choose between true love and a wealthy suitor - and one of the many brilliant points of the film is that this very plot is also the subject of Christian's production: the very aptly named Spectacular Spectacular!
From the first time Christian sets foot in the Rouge, the film takes the viewer in every direction imaginable, never content with just a straightforward telling of the love story. Everything is wrapped in dramatics and theatrics, song and dance, costumes and flair - and it's both familiar and original.
The songs are inspired in choice and arrangement, as most of them are covers of love song standards (Elton John's "Your Song") or very unusual choices ("Smells Like Teen Spirit," or "Lady Marmalade"), mixed in with some Beatles classics and Whitney Houston ballads. But none of these are quite the same once rendered by the impeccable voice talents of Broadbent, Roxburgh, MacGregor and Kidman. Every anguished confession of love is sung through one of these timeless lyrics (or the occasional original song, such as "Come What May"), and woven into the story seamlessly, as if they were written directly for the screen. Nothing seems out of place, no matter how different it might be at first glance. Even "Roxanne," by the Police, is reinvented as a tango, and is one of the more haunting set pieces as it's interspersed with Christian's budding jealousy towards the Duke.

MacGregor and Kidman, not noted for their singing voices in the past, acquit themselves very well here, showing off good ranges and talents combined with their well-earned acting chops. This is no throwaway story in their hands; you yearn for Satine as much as Christian does, and you weep when she weeps, and you ache when they both ache.
The Bohemian tenets of Freedom, Beauty, Truth and Love are all in effect here, as Luhrmann takes his vision and paints the canvas of the screen in a beautiful array of visuals that most directors would never even imagine, let alone try. Perfect costuming, a frenetic pace, and a game cast willing to try anything for the show provide two hours of blisteringly good entertainment.
By the way, don't be ashamed if this film makes you laugh, makes you dance, makes you sing, and makes you cry. It's worked quite hard to make you do all of those things.
Brilliant film-making. Don't miss this one.