Daniel Day Lewis- In Nine

The musical called Nine is a remake of a Fredrico Fellini film that was made back in the 60’s. Fellini also made La Dolce Vita and is known for his fabulous, picturesque, often very sexy life of the Italian culture. The movie Nine is loosely based on the real life of Fellini but it is actually a remake of a movie called 8 ½ by said director.

Daniel Day Lewis plays Guido Contini, a famous director (maestro) who has been commissioned to write a movie, and his mind seems to have a road block in it, and he seems to not be able to concentrate on the movie. He can see it in his head, and what he wants it to look like, but for some reason his real life stresses prevents him to actually finish the film.

It is apparent that Guido played by Lewis has a roving eye, and has often used his mistress’s as his muses. But he seems to have writers block now as the women in his life are causing him nothing but stress and strife, they are always begging for his attention and it leaves him drained, you see he is a married man and the stress of trying to hide his lifestyle from his wife is taking a toll. Not that his wife doesn’t know about his lifestyle, but as many woman who loves her husband, she has forgiven him, many times and thinks that he will finally change. It is apparent that she loves him very much and that is where the trouble lies. Guido is so damned charming in the movie that he basically gets whatever he wants but at this point it is draining his creativity.

The charm a Fellini movie has is that it is always set in Italy and has all the charms of a black and white Italian movie, the sexiness, the beautiful countryside and the passion that illuminated out of Fellini, was of course not as apparent in this film, but it was a close second. At times the movie was in black and white and then during the musical scenes they were brilliantly in color.

There were plenty of actress’s in this movie, Penelope Cruz, played his heartbroken mistress, Kate Hudson played a journalist for Vogue, who had a remarkable singing and dance routine that I would have never thought possible. Fergie played a prostitute that Guido knew as a child and had plenty of influence on him in his sexcapades, and she also was a great talent in this movie. Sophia Loren, looking fabulous played Guido’s dead mother who would make an appearance now and then to give him advice, which was quite touching, and Nicole Kidman had a small part in the movie, which we could’ve done without because it really didn’t offer anything to the movie. At first I wasn’t even sure who her character was in the film, but later realized that she was one of his actress lovers who had influenced him quite a bit in the past. But she is a presence in the film and has a great singing voice.

Now this is not a musical comedy, there were many serious parts to this movie, and it was basically a musical that was going on in the mind of Daniel Day Lewis’s character, he replays it in his head as he wants it to be done. He is quickly getting stressed out as the time to start the picture gets closer and closer and the paparazzi wants answers from him that he cannot answer. This movie has not received the best reviews but personally I happened to enjoy the movie and saw more of the Fellini influence in it than it is given credit for. The move was enjoyable, Daniel Day Lewis is always great no matter what he plays, and he even sings in the movie to my surprise. Just like the name of the movie I would give it a Nine.