Wonderful Nicole Kidman Musical

Rating: 10/10 (27 January 2006)

To me, this is the movie Nicole Kidman was born to play. I could not see anyone else do it; I mean, who knew she could sing. Ewan McGregor accentuates her performance and creates a role any guy would want to live through; I know I can't watch without saying his lines with him. In the movie, a young writer (McGregor) falls for a courtesan (Kidman) in a bawdy bordello/dance hall after she confuses him for a Duke. To cover, she gets her employer to put on his play created in tandem with Toulouse-Latrec (John Leguizamo at his most eccentric). Modern day love songs from the Beatles to Marilyn Monroe to Madonna litter the plot with curious abandon and the play mirrors and shadows the plot of the movie itself so much they they become intertwined. There's "Three's Company" level misunderstandings and cover-ups replete with sexual overtures and enough erotic undertones to choke on (few of the so-called "show girls" are very attractive). Jim Broadbent is Kidman's employer, a sort of whorehouse madam in the form of a father figure, and Richard Roxburgh plays the Duke as a violent psychopath barely contained in the form of a naive idiot. The songs are infectious and the imagery is passing, but the whole pop-song opera style with the romanticism is what makes the movie worth seeing. Kidman and McGregor have such chemistry together that it would make sense to use them together in more movies.