Credit 2001’s Moulin Rouge for making it sexy again for big-time Hollywood stars to try movie musical song and dance on for size. Nicole Kidman and Ewen McGregor might not have won all the awards they deserved for their wondrous portrayals of doomed lovers in Moulin Rouge, but they sure opened a lot of eyes of audience members and fellow actors thinking, “I could do that. I too could be an old-time Hollywood musical star!”
Enter Chicago, a musical as confident , pugnacious and fun-loving as the city it’s named after, and enter Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Richard Gere – three actors known for their dramatic roles – who took the chance with song and dance and have succeeded admirably. Chicago is very much a traditional sort of musical. Unlike Moulin Rouge, which is a movie with lots of music, this is a Broadway-style musical that happens to have been filmed. If you like Broadway musicals and you like 1930s and 1940s movie musicals, then you’re going to have a riot of a time with this one.
Chicago is a movie that depends on its storyline only to set up the song and dance numbers. Set in scandalous, partying 1920s Chicago, the story follows the exploits of two femme fatales – Velma Kelly (Zeta-Jones) and Roxie Hart (Zellweger) – who have two things in common: a love of the limelight, and the unfortunate habit of bumping off husbands or lovers. In trouble with the law, first Velma and then Roxie turn to slick lawyer Billy Flynn (Gere), who makes a career of self-promotion – and getting off high profile clients by turning them into media darlings.
From the opening number, All That Jazz, through the closing credits, Chicago is a fluffy, naughty, cynical, and most of all – musical – good time. Zellweger, Zeta_Jones and Gere handle their typecast-breaking roles extremely capably, with Zellweger carrying the biggest load and pulling it off with panache. She and Zeta-Jones dance as well as they sing, and Gere – who you’d never expect could handle the song and dance – rides his charisma to most enjoyable success. Equally important is the supporting cast, including Queen Latifah and John C. Reilley – who appears to have become Hollywood’s favourite dumb cuckold – and the music and dancing.
You’d expect a Broadway musical that’s been around for more than a quarter century to be pretty tight, and that’s certainly the case here. The tunes are catchy and the dancing is consistently excellent. Particularly enjoyable is a news conference scene in which every character other than Flynn – including the accused and the members of the press – are marionettes. It’s highly colourful and great fun, as is another scene in which Flynn tap dances his way out of a tight spot during Roxie’s trial.
It really doesn’t matter that the story is set in 1920s Chicago, although the atmosphere of that era adds a brassy charm to the proceedings. This is a pure musical, which could be set pretty much anywhere and be about pretty much anything and still work like a charm.
Director Rob Marshall – a choreographer making his first big-screen effort here – has done a wonderful job of maintaining the atmosphere and pace of a Broadway musical while also making this a highly palatable big-screen bon bon. Less ambitious than Moulin Rouge, which virtually reinvented the movie musical, Chicago is a notable film nonetheless, as it proves that the classic musical might just not be as dead as everyone had assumed. And this is great news for musical fans, nostalgia lovers, and those of us who just plain love diversity in cinema.
