Why create anew when you can film something that's been popular for decades? I guess that's the ethos behind Chicago, and given the recent resurgence in the popularity of musicals, I guess it isn’t surprising that another Hollywood studio has jumped on the bandwagon.
Rather than an original concept, Chicago is the film adaptation of the long-running stage musical. It stars Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta Jones, and Richard Gere. Queen Latifah, John C Reilly, Lucy Liu and the woman who plays Cybill’s friend in the TV show Cybill (Christine Baranski?) also feature.
Because it’s a musical, people are inevitably going to make comparisons with Moulin Rouge. Chicago isn’t as stylish, or anywhere near as original, but to say it was inferior would be a bit unfair. It is a fairly faithful reproduction of a stage musical on film, and all of the leading cast are really quite outstanding. They’re tipped for Oscars, and while I’m not sure they are warranted, given the competition, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a nomination or two.
I haven’t seen the stage version, so I’m afraid I can’t compare, but who knew Catherine Zeta Jones could sing, or that Richard Gere could dance? (This will surely give his career a huge shot in the arm. I can’t think of the last major film he was in, but the last one I saw was Runaway Bride with Julia Roberts, and that was an unmitigated flop).
The musical is set in Florida. Ok, I lie, it’s set in Chicago in the 1920’s or 30’s, those heady, glamorous days when the truth didn’t matter as much as being someone, when gangsters were celebrities, everyone wanted to be on the stage, and someone was murdered every five minutes, or so it seems.
The story centres around two women; Velma Kelly
(an almost unrecognisable Catherine Zeta Jones), vaudeville star and Roxie Hart (Zellweger), a vaudeville wannabe. For reasons I won’t go into here (I’ll spoil the story later for those who want to know) they both need the services of the best lawyer in town – Billy Flynn (Gere).
A thought does cross your mind fairly early on in the film – “yes, but they’re not really doing the singing and dancing, are they?” Well, if you wait until the very end of the credits, you will discover that actually, yes, all Richard Gere’s singing and dancing was performed by Richard Gere, all Catherine Zeta Jones’ singing and dancing was performed by Catherine Zeta Jones, and all Renée Zellweger’s singing and dancing was performed by Renée Zellweger, so bravo to them.
There are some great songs, and some great routines. Particularly good is the Cell Block Tango (He had it comin’) where six prison inmates sing about their crimes in a medley, with symbolic red handkerchiefs representing the spilled blood. John C Reilly, Roxie Hart’s devoted and deluded sucker of a husband Amos, has a poignant little number (Mr Cellophane) where he sings on an empty stage and is dressed in a cross between circus clown and Charlie Chaplin.
Catherine Zeta Jones’ really belts out her opening number (All that jazz) with some pretty nifty dancing to boot. By far the best sequence, however, is a cut away from a press conference, where Richard Gere plays the ventriloquist, with Zellweger, made-up like a dummy, sat on his knee, and he is also puppeteer to the assembled press who have strings rising from them like marionettes.
Renée Zellweger has lost quite a bit of weight since Bridget Jones’ diary. She looked normal then, now she is teeny tiny! She makes Catherine Zeta Jones look like a heifer, and that’s worrying.
The sets are pretty normal, and are what you’d expect from a film set back then. The sets for the routines (which normally come about as a result of someone’s fantasy) are a little more elaborate and extravagant, and often quite “stagey” which adds to the feeling that you’re watching a show rather than a movie.
If you don’t want to know anything about the story, please skip the next section. For those who don’t mind spoilers, read on.
****WARNING – PLOT DETAILS REVEALED****
The film opens with the stage where Velma Kelly and her sister are due to go on in their vaudeville double act. Roxie Hart is watching in the audience. Velma goes on stage alone and we soon discover why, as she is arrested for the double murder of her husband and sister who she discovered were having an affair.
Before long, Roxie ends up in jail too. She had been having an affair with a furniture salesman who claimed to have connections in the showbiz world and could get her on the stage. When he tells Roxie he wants to finish with her, and reveals the fact that he never had any contacts, she shoots him.
When her husband comes home, she persuades him to tell the police that it was he who shot the man after discovering him about to burgle their apartment with Roxie asleep on the bed. This he does, until he realises that they knew the man, and that his wife must have been having an affair, and so Roxie gets carted off to jail.
Velma is aloof and ignores Roxie when she first arrives at the prison. A huge celebrity since murdering her husband and sister, she doesn’t want to waste her time with wannabes. Roxie is scared she’ll get the death penalty and asks the prison governor, Mama (Queen Latifah), for advice. Mama recommends the services of Billy Flynn, the best lawyer in Chicago. He’s never lost a case, but he comes at a hefty price, and so Roxie’s ever-loyal husband naïvely stumps up the cash.
Billy Flynn soon realises that the best way to get Roxie off is to make her a darling of the press. He holds press conferences and fabricates details of her past, saying she had had a traumatic childhood, was brought up by nuns and blaming the demon drink (thereby ensuring sympathy from people campaigning for temperance). By doing this, he catapults her to stardom, and soon her fame eclipses that of Kelly, who becomes jealous.
Their time in the headlines is nearly ended by the arrival of another inmate at the jail, a triple murderer who also happens to be a wealthy heiress, played by Lucy Liu, but Roxie thinks on her feet, feigns a faint and says in a weak voice “I hope it didn’t hurt the baby” to the throng of press who have just surrounded her, and so she becomes front page news again.
On follows an OJ Simpson-like charade and show trial. Roxie cuts her hair, wears demure dresses and knits while in the dock to ensure the sympathy of the jury. Flynn discredits the prosecution, by fair means and foul, and all seems to be going well until the prosecution calls a surprise witness; Velma Kelly.
She tells the assembled courtroom that she had found Roxie’s diary in her cell and proceeds to read out passages such as “I’m glad I killed that bastard, I’d do it again in an instant”. It seems that Roxie’s chances of avoiding the scaffold are scuppered. However, Flynn then asks whether Kelly had had her charges dropped in return for testifying, which of course, she had, and proceeds to ask her to read further excerpts from the diary, which are written in a lawyerly tone, and so weren’t written by Roxie.
Then he asks whether Kelly really did find the diary, which of course, she didn’t, Mama gave it to her, and so he surmises that the diary was a plant, put there by the unscrupulous lawyer for the prosecution, who is hoping to run for state governor, and Roxie is found not guilty.
Of course, the prosecution lawyer is actually probably one of the most scrupulous people in the courtroom, since it was Billy Flynn and Mama who colluded to fake the lawyerly passages in the otherwise real diary, thereby getting both star clients set free in one brilliant move.
Roxie now thinks that she is going to be a star of the stage, but her time in the spotlight has seemingly passed; the press are more interested in the latest female murderer and she is forgotten. Velma Kelly is having a similar problem, and so the obvious conclusion is for the pair, although they hate each other, to form a double act.
****YES, BUT IS IT WORTH MY MONEY?****
This musical has been popular in the West End recently, with Denise Van Outen, Marti Pellow and Bepe from Eastenders all trotting the boards, and is about to tour the UK with Nasty Nick Cotton starring too. Now, I haven’t seen it, so I can’t comment, but on leaving the cinema we did feel like we’d been to see a stage show. Given that a cinema ticket is at least a third of the cost of a theatre ticket, I think it is pretty good value.
All in all, a good evening’s entertainment, an occasional laugh, toe-tapping music, and with luck, you might come away humming and smiling as we did. If you do, make sure you give whoever’s watching the security cameras a good laugh by doing a mini dance routine as you try to find your car, I’m sure it will make their night, and it’s only fair – we did!
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Production Year: 1999 - Music / Performing Arts - Original Language: English - Classification: Exempt - Starring: Donny Osmond, Joan Collins, Richard Attenborough
I really enjoyed reading that, you write very well. Somebody has just given me an MP3 with the soundtrack on, haven't had time to listen to it yet.
MadeinScotland 26.01.2003 16:15
it sounds good, the way you waid that coming out of the cinema made you feel you had seen a stage show sounds like the feeling we had after seeing moulin rouge. Have seen the show too - its okay , not fab though
kate
alma 24.01.2003 22:35
Normally you couldn't drag me kicking and screaming to see a musical, but you've made this sound very tempting.
Adapted from the long-running stage version, this big-screenChicagois a non-stop singing ... more
and dancing extravaganza that may well herald the welcome revival of the film musical. When the part-time lover of wannabe star Roxie (Renee Zellweger) is murdered...
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![Chicago [DVD] [2003]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/79224345.jpg "Chicago [DVD] [2003]")
Jan 21st, 2003
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