Movie Review: Moulin Rouge

Moulin Rouge

I'm a big fan of the annual Academy Awards (no, I don't know why I find them so entertaining, but I do), and I insisted on viewing Moulin Rouge before the ceremonies were held. I wanted to see the Best Picture nominee for myself, and determine if Nicole Kidman really was Best Actress material in her role as an early 20th century dance hall girl. So a week before the awards, I sat down with the DVD to see what I could see.

I knew beforehand, of course, that the movie was a musical, and that it was something of a period piece. The movie's opening fit right into my expectations. Within a couple of minutes, however, I found myself sitting straight up on my living room sofa with my mouth open in some strange combination of surprise and great amusement: Moulin Rouge may indeed be a musical, but it's like nothing you've ever seen before. From the beginning, it's funny and touching. There are shades of vaudeville in combination with moments of MTV. It's a full length melodrama filmed as a frenetic music video, complete with bright colors, surreal sets, and some of the most crisply creative editing I've seen. And yes, Nicole Kidman really can sing.

If you're looking for The Sound of Music, you'll find Moulin Rouge a shock. If, on the other hand, the notion of an updated Simon Lagree-type villain woven into a plot of beautiful-tragic-heroine-hopelessly-loves-underrated-poor-poet - all to the accompaniment of music ranging from The Sound of Music, as it happens, to Metallica - sounds remotely interesting to you, Moulin Rouge is your movie. I'm not typically a musical fan myself, but I adored Moulin Rouge and hope that many more of you will, some rainy afternoon, give it a chance.

Family Suitability: The few moments of potential violence are handled in what is almost a comic-book fashion, and any sexual activity is implicit rather than explicit. Things do get a little fast and crazy at times, however, so a child younger than about 10 will probably have trouble following the plot. In truth, I doubt anyone under 15 or so would enjoy the movie anyway.