Last rites for the movie musical were administered somewhere circa 1980, when the double-barreled blast of Can’t Stop the Music and Xanadu finished it off. Recent years, however, have seen the once-revered film genre taking its cue from the title of the 1945 Bela Lugosi cheapie Zombies On Broadway, clawing its way back from the grave via splashy, stagy, song-packed showstoppers. Yet pictures like Evita and Moulin Rouge almost seem like appetizers when compared to Chicago, a knockout of a musical that, among other achievements, finds Catherine Zeta-Jones in her best screen work to date, Richard Gere delivering his finest effort since An Officer and a Gentleman, and Renee Zellweger adding to her head-spinning string of unassailable performances.Not just for theater aficionados, Chicago is a musical for people who don’t even like musicals, weaving its deliriously dark tale with enough cyanide-laced cynicism to win over moviegoers who wouldn’t know Oklahoma! from Oh! Calcutta! Director-choreographer Rob Marshall, making his feature film bow, and Oscar-winning scripter Bill Condon (Gods & Monsters), adapting the stage smash (originally helmed by Bob Fosse and revived to dazzling success in more recent times), keep the proceedings both lively and lacerating, and if, after years of overexposure, the story’s themes relating to the cult of celebrity have all the bite of a toothless gerbil, at least they’re presented in an irresistible and engaging fashion.
Zellweger, that most Kewpie Doll of actresses, turns into Lethal Barbie as she handles the leading role of Roxie Hart, a starlet wanna-be who, like most of Prohibition-era Chicago, is in awe of Velma Kelly (Zeta-Jones), a singer-dancer who gains instant notoriety after she kills both her sister and her husband when she catches them together in the sack. Velma’s popularity goes through the roof as her public image is carefully handled by slick lawyer Billy Flynn (Gere), but her sordid tale is shoved to the back page once Roxie kills her heartless lover and ends up behind bars alongside Velma. Recognizing the mass appeal of Roxie’s case, Flynn chooses to make her his legal priority, thereby generating no small amount of tension between the two femme fatales. All three venal players continue to work the angles that will ensure they land on top, with the corrupt prison warden (Queen Latifah), Roxie’s hapless husband (John C. Reilly), and a complacent media headed by reporter Mary Sunshine (Christine Baranski) also thrown into the mix for good measure.
Visually, Chicago might rank among the more claustrophobic musicals — most of the numbers are performed in dark interiors — but the actors’ energy and Marshall’s imaginative staging are strong enough that they make the entire picture seem as open-aired as Julie Andrews’ hilltop warbling in The Sound of Music. The fact that all the actors do their own singing (a piece of information stated more than once in the closing credits) adds immeasurably to the appeal of their individual performances: These guys and dolls are giving the project everything they’ve got, and the theater auditorium positively vibrates with their exuberance.
Initially coming across as the 1920s’ answer to Archie comics’ Betty and Veronica, Zellweger and Zeta-Jones are perfectly matched adversaries, all the more so when Zellweger’s naive Roxie turns from jilted sweetheart to master manipulator. Reilly, who had a banner year playing doormat husbands (see also The Hours and The Good Girl), brings pathos to his one musical number, while Queen Latifah invests hers with a sultriness that suggests she’s ready to stop playing second banana in feature films and move on to leading roles. But Gere is the real surprise. Yes, he’s once again playing an immoral, self-centered heel, but for once he doesn’t rely on his usual bag of fluttery mannerisms to construct the character; here, he really acts. It’s clear he’s having a lot of fun, and he’s far from the only one.
From the talking corporate logos in Adam Sandler’s Eight Crazy Nights to the life-saving Dr. Pepper can in Mission to Mars, “product placement” has been one of those dirty little Hollywood phrases, a sign that a producer has sold his integrity for the sake of earning a few extra bucks by agreeing to allow a major company to shill its wares on the big screen.About Schmidt, a unique endeavor from the team behind Election, offers perhaps the most ingenious — and most faultless — use of company/product placement ever created for a motion picture; it’s so subtle, and so expertly woven into the very fabric of the film (Minority Report also managed this tricky feat), that its effectiveness as a marketing tool doesn’t sink in until well after the movie’s over.
The organization in question is Childreach, the non-profit group that has spent the past few decades aiding needy families in underdeveloped countries. Unlike most outfits, Childreach doubtless didn’t have to pay a cent to the filmmakers for inclusion (a press release on the group’s website at www.childreach.com explains their involvement in the project), but the publicity they receive in the movie is invaluable. Writer-director Alexander Payne and co-scripter Jim Taylor, adapting Louis Begley’s novel, have tackled the sad-sack saga of Warren Schmidt (Jack Nicholson), a just-retired insurance actuary whose remaining days on this planet (in Omaha, to be exact) look like nothing more than one long slumber, endless hours of doing nothing, seeing nothing, feeling nothing. Bored with his lot in life, Schmidt momentarily perks up when he sees an infomercial for Childreach. Perhaps responding because he’s deeply touched, or, more likely, because it gives him something to do and wards off the deadening of his spirit for at least a few extra moments, Schmidt calls the group and ends up sponsoring a 6-year-old African boy named Ndugu.
The movie’s use of Schmidt’s sponsorship is brilliant, allowing the character’s reams of voice-over narration to be deployed both as a floating, ethereal entity on the soundtrack and as the content of the letters he writes to little Ndugu. Never mind that the kid can’t read or write, or that Schmidt obviously doesn’t have a basic grasp of how these organizations work, as evidenced by a hilarious line involving his enclosed sponsorship check of $22. What matters is that Schmidt now has a forum in which to pour out his thoughts and feelings, which are jolted awake after his wife of 40-odd years unexpectedly drops dead. Embarking on a seriocomic cross-country road trip in his shiny new Winnebago, Schmidt experiences a series of brief encounters that eventually lead him to realize he has but one mission in life: to prevent his beloved daughter (Hope Davis) from marrying a doltish, mullet-haired waterbed salesman (Dermot Mulroney).
Warren Schmidt doesn’t particularly seem to be a good man or a bad man, just an uncomfortable one — uncomfortable around others, even uncomfortable in his own skin. His encounters with practically every other character in this film make us tense because we never know to what degree he’ll embarrass himself or others; only his potential son-in-law’s earthy mom (Kathy Bates in a fearless and fleshy turn) can match (make that surpass) his ability to turn a social setting upside down.
It’s this refusal to shy away from life’s ordinary unpleasantries that makes About Schmidt such a memorable and, ultimately, moving experience. I suppose it’s possible to view the film as simply a polished version of Hollywood condescension — look at how comical those regular folks without Beverly Hills zip codes can be! — but Nicholson’s astute performance, one of his finest in recent times, gets to the crux of the matter, embodying an overwhelming, almost crushing desire to find meaning in one’s life and to ultimately make a difference. It all culminates in a scene of quiet devastation, centered on a picture that isn’t just worth a thousand words but also a hundred emotions, all of them finely etched on Warren Schmidt’s wrinkled, weary and wiser visage.
This article appears in Jan 1-7, 2003.
