Film Review: Nine (12A)

DIRECTOR Rob Marshall scored a notable hit with the stage-toscreen adaptation of Chicago. But that musical had a story and great songs, two things singularly lacking in Nine.

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Nine has a series of potentially show-stopping songs delivered by the women - and there a lot of them - in the life of Guido Contini, an Italian film director suffering a crisis. A week before cameras are set to roll on his new movie, he still hasn't written the script, being too preoccupied with juggling the many women in his life. The film is based on the Broadway musical, which made a brief trip to this side of the Atlantic, which was inspired by Federick Fellini's film 8-anda-half.

Daniel Day-Lewis brings as much intensity to this sketchily written role as every other (better-written) part he plays but you have to get over his Italian accent - just add an "a" to every other word - and the fact that Guido is a male chauvinist pig.

He mistreats his wife, his mistress and his leading lady, and always going running back to mamma (Sophia Loren, looking like she's spent too long under the sunlamp).

What remains is a series of songs, staged with all the verve and attack you'd expect from Marshall but not adding up to a proper film no matter how excitingly and expertly they are presented on screen.

There's no doubt that the glamorous female cast is to die for with the marvellous Marion Cotillard outstanding as his longsuffering wife Luisa and a sexy Penelope Cruz as his mistress Carla.

Nicole Kidman is good but underused as his leading lady and muse Claudia, a blonde bombshell. Other ladies visited by Guido include his costume designer Lilli (Judi Dench), journalist Stephanie (Kate Hudson), and prostitute Saraghina (Fergie, from Black Eyed Peas).

They all get a song and big production number and much fast editing, performed on the same set which only serves to emphasise the theatrical origins of the piece.