To be honest, while all the criticisms are very understandable, and I actually agree with them, I was expecting something worse than how De-Lovely turned out. It is a long way from a great film, or even a good film, but to me it wasn't terrible.
De-Lovely does have a good deal of good things. The film looks fabulous, the period clothes are just exquisite, there was evidently a great deal of care and attention to detail in the scenery and settings and the cinematography sparkles. The ageing make-up is very well done as well. Cole Porter's songs are wonderful, the best of them gold standard classics and while some of the songs deserved better treatment than they got others are very well performed, the best being John Barrowman's Night and Day, Natalie Cole's beautiful Every Time We Say Goodbye, Alanis Morissette's Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love and Kevin Kline's sublime So in Love. The first half is suitably witty and sophisticated, the aftermath of the riding accident is movingly done(an improvement over how it was depicted in Night and Day with Cary Grant, which I found superior actually despite its flaws) and Porter and Linda's relationship is well-depicted. Ashley Judd plays Linda with dignity and Jonathan Pryce enjoys himself but other than the production values the best thing about the film was Kevin Kline's brilliant performance as Porter, a witty, charming and moving performance.
Unfortunately, De-Lovely takes a nose-dive in the second half, feeling like a different film altogether, the pacing becomes leaden and the narrative becomes very jumpy with some ideas touched upon and not explored enough. Due to the gross number of inaccuracies and the change in chronological order of the songs and events makes the storytelling hard to follow. There is some really sloppy editing, and in general Irwin Winkler's very stylised direction becomes increasingly self-indulgent and manages to be hectic and ponderous. In the second half the wit and sophistication the first half had is completely lost with a lot of the writing becoming incredibly trite and awkward, Porter's sexuality is much too overt(the opposite effect of the glossed over effect Night and Day had) and the film overall is lacking in emotional connection narratively and stylistically. Too many of the song renditions don't work, Elvis Costello's singing style is ill-suited to Let's Misbehave(he also does little with the wit of the lyrics), Lemar is completely out of place and worst of all Begin the Beguine is execrably arranged and performed to the point of being unrecognisable, with tuneless and emotionless singing from Sheryl Crow, sounding like she isn't even listening to the music.
In conclusion, not that bad but should have been much better. 5/10 Bethany Cox
De-Lovely does have a good deal of good things. The film looks fabulous, the period clothes are just exquisite, there was evidently a great deal of care and attention to detail in the scenery and settings and the cinematography sparkles. The ageing make-up is very well done as well. Cole Porter's songs are wonderful, the best of them gold standard classics and while some of the songs deserved better treatment than they got others are very well performed, the best being John Barrowman's Night and Day, Natalie Cole's beautiful Every Time We Say Goodbye, Alanis Morissette's Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love and Kevin Kline's sublime So in Love. The first half is suitably witty and sophisticated, the aftermath of the riding accident is movingly done(an improvement over how it was depicted in Night and Day with Cary Grant, which I found superior actually despite its flaws) and Porter and Linda's relationship is well-depicted. Ashley Judd plays Linda with dignity and Jonathan Pryce enjoys himself but other than the production values the best thing about the film was Kevin Kline's brilliant performance as Porter, a witty, charming and moving performance.
Unfortunately, De-Lovely takes a nose-dive in the second half, feeling like a different film altogether, the pacing becomes leaden and the narrative becomes very jumpy with some ideas touched upon and not explored enough. Due to the gross number of inaccuracies and the change in chronological order of the songs and events makes the storytelling hard to follow. There is some really sloppy editing, and in general Irwin Winkler's very stylised direction becomes increasingly self-indulgent and manages to be hectic and ponderous. In the second half the wit and sophistication the first half had is completely lost with a lot of the writing becoming incredibly trite and awkward, Porter's sexuality is much too overt(the opposite effect of the glossed over effect Night and Day had) and the film overall is lacking in emotional connection narratively and stylistically. Too many of the song renditions don't work, Elvis Costello's singing style is ill-suited to Let's Misbehave(he also does little with the wit of the lyrics), Lemar is completely out of place and worst of all Begin the Beguine is execrably arranged and performed to the point of being unrecognisable, with tuneless and emotionless singing from Sheryl Crow, sounding like she isn't even listening to the music.
In conclusion, not that bad but should have been much better. 5/10 Bethany Cox