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De-Lovely is De-Ficient
Porter’s story lacks the sexiness of his songs
by Paige M. Travis
The high point of De-Lovely, the supposedly honest bio-pic of the reportedly passionate and hedonistic songwriter Cole Porter is a scene in which he coaches an actor in the singing of “Night and Day.” The actor fusses about the song’s vocal range, and Porter (Kevin Kline) leaps onto the stage to walk him through it. “It’s about obsession,” he says and starts to sing. The actor joins in, their eyes connect, and the camera circles around them as they hit the song’s stride: “Night and day, under the hide of me, there’s an oh such a hungry yearning burning inside of me.”
This song might just be the best one Cole Porter ever wrote, and the creator of De-Lovely uses it to exemplify Porter’s passions—in this case, his lust for the comely young actor with whom he later has a rendezvous in the park. But beyond this moment of tension—supplied more by the intensity of the song than a spark between the actors—the rest of the film is devoid of love, romantic or sexual.
The actors can’t be blamed completely for any frayed edges of this gilded story. Just in the way they look at each other, Kline and his ravishing co-star Ashley Judd perfect the easy, flirtatious friendship between Porter and the Southern divorcee Linda Lee that leads to a platonic marriage.
Biographical information on Porter explains that the marriage was a contract based on mutual affection as much as it was a business partnership; separately, Porter and Lee were already crazy rich. People get married and stay together for all kinds of reasons, but this couple’s reasons are fuzzy, which leads the audience to wonder what this film doesn’t reveal—namely, why Lee would marry a gay man, and why Porter, who didn’t seem desperate to hide his homosexuality, would marry at all. The film wants to answer these questions with a simple “They loved each other,” but I’m not buying it.
Instead of being a straightforward, chronological biography of one of America’s greatest lyricists, De-Lovely is framed like a musical episode of This is Your Life. Porter as an old man is joined inside an empty theater by Gabe (Jonathan Pryce), who “directs” a stage version of Porter’s life before his very eyes. His friends and family appear in musical scenes of his own songs, playing out the highlights of days gone by. We enter the stories—his meeting Linda, their courtship and marriage, his move to New York and popularity on Broadway and so on—only to be yanked back to the dim theater and the old Porter’s wrinkly, bloated face, over and over again. As good a job as the make-up department does to make Kline look ancient, this isn’t the face you want to see. Gabe (get it? Gabriel, the archangel!) consults Porter for tips in “editing” his life story, inquiring whether the flashback portrayal got it “right.”
What’s the point? Do we really care how Cole Porter looked back on his life? Rarely has a storytelling concept been more distracting, annoying and completely useless.
Although the liver-spotted Porter deems his retrospective to be a love story, its real strength is the music. Although his musicals were held together by the faintest plots, the songs within were tightly crafted numbers, several of which—“Anything Goes,” “I Get a Kick out of You,” “You’re the Top,” “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” “Easy to Love”—have stood alone and been hits for other artists. De-Lovely’s song-and-dance numbers—used to suggest how much Porter’s songs reflected his life—are the highlight of the film. In addition to the aforementioned “Night and Day” scene, performances of “Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love)” by Alanis Morrisette, “Love for Sale” by Vivian Green, and, believe it or not, “Begin the Beguine” by Sheryl Crow are mesmerizing and thoroughly enjoyable.
The film’s cruelest action is interrupting these entertaining numbers with flashes of a crotchety old Porter and the increasingly dull and frustrating story of his and Linda’s irreconcilable differences. She seems to accept his dalliances as necessary for keeping his creativity alive, but her perpetually disapproving expression implies otherwise. Judd maintains a stately grace that makes us admire Linda, but we wonder why she was so devoted to this man. You want to tell her to have her own affairs, and maybe she did.
The film seems proud of itself for portraying Porter’s gay lifestyle—unlike the 1946 bio-pic Night and Day starring Cary Grant, which straight-washed his story. But even though De-Lovely shows Porter’s flings with men, the film can’t commit to portraying him as a realistic gay man who has a wife (amazing since Hollywood is full of that very thing). One of the film’s lines has Porter explain that he wanted any kind of love he could get, that he couldn’t get enough love from just one person—or one gender. Despite this rabid pursuit of love and sex, there’s no heat or passion. His liaisons seem like slightly naughty habits, like grabbing an extra cookie from the jar. Perhaps it’s the cool, well-groomed high-society appearance of Porter and his gaggle of boy toys, but none of them seem hot for each other in the least. I don’t expect porn, but some actual sexiness wouldn’t hurt.
Maybe the inexplicable complexity of Porter and his relationships makes the film so wishy-washy. It would make for better cinema if Porter had married for appearances’ sake and then pursued his gay affairs with fervent, secretive passion accompanied by loads of guilt over betraying his wife and denying society’s expectations. But De-Lovely, whether it’s been drained of color by avoiding such a dramatic treatment, is so much more lukewarm than Cole Porter seems to deserve. When the musical numbers are so energetic, and so much love is at stake, it’s a shame that the rest of the movie is so lifeless.
July 29, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 31
© 2004 Metro Pulse
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