A noble failure

Rating: 10/10 (17 June 2001)

I loved Strictly Ballroom and Romeo and Juliet, so I was rooting for this one going in. Where all the technical hoohaw and the music carried those movies along, here I thought the got in the way. It was like a 2 hour music video, and who can love that. Particularly at the beginning, the action was so frenetic that nothing seemed to stick. The movie slowed down as it wound down, which let at least a couple of the characters come through to a degree, and there were lots of very clever, very funny, bits, but I never felt drawn in to the story. My wife said it reminded her of Coppolla's Dracula, and I think that is true. Unfortunately, Dracula was a clear confirmation that Coppolla had lost sight of what was great about his movies and had become infatuated with the technical side. All that technical brilliance can really make a story come alive, but it cannot substitute for a story. Hope this was just a slight lurch off the true path for Luhrman.