DE-LOVELY
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

CAPSULE: MGM's second film biography of Cole Porter
manages to stick closer to the truth and reveal more
of his private life. Director Irwin Winkler makes
it feel like we have seen a lot of Porter's life.
And he still manages to fit in a song every four
minutes. Kline and Judd are both good, but Cole Porter
seems to have more sophistication than depth.
Rating: high +1 (-4 to +4) or 6/10

It is not an easy job to shoehorn thirty-one Cole Porter songs into a two-hour movie and still have time left over to tell much at all about the life of Cole Porter. It is to Irwin Winkler's credit that at least at a high level the viewer feels the film has not stinted on telling Porter's story--or more accurately the story of Porter's relationship with his wife, Linda Porter. Kevin Kline plays Cole Porter, the man the public saw with his urbane sophistication and the man the public did not see with his string of male lovers.

The story of DE-LOVELY borrows a leaf from ALL THAT JAZZ with a humanized Death (in his case Jonathan Pryce) showing the subject his life as if it were a show. Porter meets his future wife Linda Leigh (Ashley Judd) at a partly and immediately is smitten. He soon has to make the admission to her that while she has his affection, his chief attraction is to men. Leigh who has as much affection for him tells him discretely that she has no strong sex drive and will let him have his nights with the boys if his days are spent with her. After they marry Linda has reason to regret that pact, as his sexual desire for her flags even as it increases for men. His tenderness for her is never altered, but he does not desire her physically and while she has said he does not have great needs, he does not bother to meet even those. She wants only the affection and a modicum of discretion, but Cole repeatedly gives in to the temptation to be indiscrete and to misbehave. When asked why she is so complacent Cole explains, "Mrs. Porter tries very hard to want what I want." Meanwhile Porter's goes from composing songs to composing Broadway musicals to composing films for MGM. The public loves his music but largely misses the double entendres, even the songs which it is implied were intentionally dumbed-down to please Louis B. Mayer.
MGM even makes a highly fictionalized biography of Porter, NIGHT AND DAY.

The film is structured like ALL THAT JAZZ, but somehow Porter is not as compelling a character as Joe Gideon/Bob Fosse. He is suave but is not shown complex enough to be really interesting.
His sex life is all that seems to be under the surface. The production design by Eve Stewart (TOPSY-TURVEY) seems to have just the right touch of sophisticated upper class society. The makeup to age actors gets better and better with time. The 73-year-old Porter is practically unrecognizable as Kevin Kline and could almost be another actor.

Ashley Judd is as good in this film as I have ever seen her. She in fact shows more depth than does Kline. Her Linda is captivating enough to leave not the smallest doubt why Cole would be interested in her. Perhaps our interest in her is why we feel Linda's pain more than Cole's. Too much of his emotion is muted by sophistication. Overall I rate DE-LOVELY a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10.

Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Copyright 2004 Mark R. Leeper