Dizzying kaleidoscope

Rating: 5/10 (20 February 2002)

For lovers of the musical theater (a purer venue for musical plays than film), the PR for Moulin Rouge was very tempting, especially given the calliope of popular songs featured in the soundtrack. Viewed on the small screen (as I did), it no doubt lost some of its dazzling effectiveness, but I think if I'd seen it in a movie theater I might have become uncomfortably dizzy. The production is almost blindingly colorful and there is so much going on visually that it is hard to take it all in. It is a jangling jumble of many parts--circus sideshow, fantasy, romance, dark comedy, and burlesque. It's as if Baz Luhrmann made every movie he's ever wanted to make, all in one.
The performances were fine, however, and there were plenty of compelling moments. The sweet singing voices of both Satine (Nicole Kidman) and Christian (Ewan McGregor) were the biggest surprise. Unfortunately, I didn't really feel their chemistry and the contrast between their mutual love and their disdain for the bad duke (Richard Roxburgh) could have been drawn more clearly for better dramatic effect. Jim Broadbent--who played the conflicted Zidler, proprietor of the Moulin Rouge--of all the actors, seemed to grasp the need for a bigger-than-life performance. John Leguizamo, a wonderful character actor, had too little to do as Toulouse-Lautrec.
The movie only partly worked, and it was the basic innocence and universality of the appealing story that saved it from finally exploding like an ambitious science experiment with too many ingredients.