Music! Dance! Costumes! Melodrama!

Rating: Null/10 (22 January 2016)

A young Scottish author (Ewan McGregor) moves to Paris right before the turn of the century to join the Bohemian movement. He's there to write about love, the only problem being that he's never been in love. Luckily, a group of actors recruit him as their new writer and he gets to meet Satine (Nicole Kidman), the Sparkling Diamond of the infamous Moulin Rouge cabaret. Unfortunately, the budding attraction between these two is bad for business as a very wealthy Duke (Richard Roxburgh) is also interested in Satine's, ahem, satins.
What Moulin Rouge! does better than pretty much any other film I've ever seen is spectacle. Everything this movie does is gargantuan. Everyone is acting, emoting, always moving, but always in-character. These people are writers, can-can dancers, courtesans, low-life actors. It makes sense that their whole life is one humongous act where it makes perfect, logic sense for someone to burst into a song right out of nowhere. I especially love the scene where the Duke is about to discover the plot, but everyone, without even knowing one another, is able to pull the wool over his eyes with a quickly spun yarn conveyed through glances and fast-talking. That's how in tune with one another these people are.
McGregor and Kidman are also very good in their roles and have some genuine chemistry. Sure it's drowned in cheese, it takes them about five minutes to fall in love and the romance is mainly there to be the romance. I don't really think they really get to know one another. But sometimes that can be forgiven if the movie can pull of the mood and the style correctly. And Moulin Rouge! definitely does.
The production values are also amazing. The costumes, the music, the whole grandeur. It's also shot with a very distinctive style from the actual curtain opening start to the faded browns of Christian's sorrow to the lusciously vibrant colours of the cabaret. A film many people see solely for the visuals. They're that good.
And yeah, it has its flaws. Its many, many, many flaws. The editing is way too fast, making you unable to focus on anything, especially in the beginning until you get used to it. Though, to the film's credit, it slows down a bit after a while. The story is kind of clichéd and the ending twist is rather uncomfortable from the characters' point of view if you think about it too much. Roxburgh's Duke is also completely over the top, so much so that he would stand out in a children's morning cartoon. It's very much intentional and kind of fits in the whole mood of the film, but he's still something of an oddity among the character cast.
But, Moulin Rouge! is one of those guilty pleasure movies where you really don't want to change any of the flaws (with the exception of editing speed in my case) because to change them would be to take something away from the experience. It's definitely not for anyone, but personally I appreciate it for what it is and will definitely pop it in everyone now and then for the rest of my life. Just because it is such a unique piece.