Moulin Rouge is a shockingly creative and fascinating film about an original love story.

Rating: 9/10 (6 August 2002)

A film like this could VERY easily have been great, or at least much greater than it was. Consider what would have happened had they put in the time to come up with an original score that fit with the astronomical level of creativity and imagination that saturates every other element of the film - it may very well have been something as memorable as The Wizard of Oz or some of the truly great scores from film history, such as the Indiana Jones music or the Star Wars theme or any number of other great film soundtracks. But unfortunately, they decided instead to punctuate this incredible and beautiful film with covers of modern popular songs which have no business being in the movie in the first place.
First of all, before I begin to complain, I should mention that it is a testament to the quality of the film when something like this is unfortunately thrown in, yet the film as a whole manages to remain a wonderful cinematic experience, it's just too bad that there was so little effort put into such a pivotal thing as the score (especially in a musical romance like this), which could have put the movie over the threshold into the realm of the truly great films. Again, I would like to point out that the performances of the songs were beautiful and wonderfully entertaining, as well as brilliantly choreographed, but even this amazing presentation does not make up for the almost complete lack of any original musical content. There are a few original songs in the movie, but it's the modern ones that are not only unoriginal, but completely disruptive to the rest of the movie.
The story deals with an out of work writer in the year 1900 who goes to Paris to write his masterpiece and find true love. Once there, he finds himself stalled by writer's block, but soon finds himself whirled through a dizzying sequence of events that inadvertently send him on the way to accomplish the very goal that he set out for, although not in exactly the way that he had anticipated. This is where the originality comes in, as we are presented with a fascinating although initially superficial romantic plot which is enormously exaggerated but not beyond belief even for a moment. The Parisian night life that we are presented with is huge and glittery and rich and loud, and we are so enraptured by it that we don't doubt for a minute that this is exactly what the night life was like at the Moulin Rouge in 1900.
However, this brilliant story is also exactly where the movie begins to falter. True, this is almost surely a vastly exaggerated account of what nights were really like at the Moulin Rouge during this time, but it's so well presented that it is remarkably easy to believe. Unfortunately, we are periodically confused by performances of popular modern songs. Now, I can't say that I was altogether disappointed with all of these performances. Indeed, many of them were genuinely entertaining and well done (although I almost had to leave the room when The Police's `Roxanne' was belligerently performed), but they feel like speed bumps in the film. This is such an enjoyable and convincing film that it's horribly disappointing that they decided to throw songs like `Smells Like Teen Spirit' and that Whitney Houston song into the mix, almost mocking the audience for trying to enjoy the turn-of-the-century world that's presented.
Moulin Rouge is something of a strange phenomenon, then, because it is a truly great film that was brought down by the childish addition of modern music. There is no fathomable reason that a film that takes place in 1900 should contain these songs, even though they were quite often well done. It was interesting to learn that both Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor have wonderful singing voices, but the presentation of modern music does nothing but remove the audience from the world that we have been drawn into and remind us that we are watching a movie, and a movie that's trying to make a bad joke, at that.
There is no mystery as to why Moulin Rouge was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture of 2001, but there is also no mystery as to why it didn't win that Oscar (and there is even LESS mystery on that subject when you've seen the other nominees, particularly A Beautiful Mind, the earth-quakingly good winner). Moulin Rouge in inarguably one of the best films released in 2001, but it was sadly held down by its soundtrack.
It should be noted, however, that the music in the film was beautifully done and that the performances were for the most part nearly as good as the rest of the film, but they are so incongruous with the content of the film that they can only count against it. A musical romance is so centered on the music in the film that if the music doesn't work for it, the film as a whole suffers, and it's too bad because Moulin Rouge could easily have fit in as one of cinematic history's truly groundbreaking and memorable films.