De-Lovely

If you love Cole Porter, and who does, then this film will probably not make you all that happy. Kevin Kline does an outstanding job of playing both the old and the young Cole Porter in a film that shows you just how little there was to the famous song writer.

Like Porter's pathetic Broadway shows, the movie uses every excuse to have someone in the background singing a Porter tune. The songs are the movie's showpieces, just like the musicals that they come from, and are awkward and out of place most of the time. And to really drive home how boring and uninspiring Cole Porter's songs often were we get to hear them rendered by the likes of Sheryl Crow and Alanis Morisette. Gag me. The reality was that Porter's music was never very special and even the best of it is just Broadway fodder.

The movies highlight is definitely the incredible acting of Kevin Kline who should not have to lower himself to this kind of film. I don't want to say that the film was awful, but he is excellent the film didn't live up to him. The biggest problem with De-Lovely is that Cole Porter just doesn't seem to be a film worthy subject. He did little that is impressive, he wasn't a nice person, he wasn't incredibly evil. He was just a nobody that wrote decent music that didn't fit into any musical but had no purpose without one that somehow became famous when almost none of his work ever did. Everyone is familiar with "Anything Goes" but who has bothered to see it? I have never heard of a person who was happy after seeing a Porter show regardless of their opinion of his music.

That being said, the movie was well done, except for the bizarre musically performances, and did a good job portraying Porter's unexceptional life. The only truly amazing performance of the film is Kline himself.

Overall the movie was fine but slow and basically boring. There was little to really hold your interest as the characters of Porter's life were generally less interesting than he was himself.