De-Lovely 2004

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: Porter's music is made for movies, and just about anywhere else, but maybe the man himself wasn't. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: Not inept enough to make the composer spin in his grave ... but not insightful or clever enough to please the old boy, either. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Visually, De-Lovely is a treat; the costumes and colors are lavish and intricate, with the movie occasionally fading elegantly into art deco black and white. Read more

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: It's hard not be entertained by two dozen of Cole's best, sung winningly, if not always brilliantly, by a company that includes Alanis Morissette, Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow and (the best, fittingly) Natalie Cole. Read more

Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle: Director Irwin Winkler's highly stylized technique is difficult to connect with emotionally. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: Director Irwin Winkler has a veteran's appreciation for show business, and he confidently chronicles Porter's rise to fame and fortune -- and his physical and career setbacks. Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: A wildly uneven musical biography of Cole Porter. Read more

Bill Muller, Arizona Republic: Bungled, empty and tortuously constructed. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Thoughtful, creative, and generally worthy of its subject, with sins that are more of ambition and miscalculation than of execution. Read more

Manohla Dargis, Los Angeles Times: De-lousy. Read more

Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle: Entertaining. With more than 30 Cole Porter songs and an accomplished cast, how can it not be? Read more

Paul Clinton (CNN.com), CNN.com: This elegant production beautifully captures a time and place that no longer exists -- and perhaps never did -- except in song. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: This hybrid of psychological investigation, musical celebration and period drama is a muddle. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Something dishy and rare: a biopic about a happy, and even enchanted, man. Read more

Philip Wuntch, Dallas Morning News: Never gets under your skin -- neither yours nor, for that matter, Cole Porter's. Read more

Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly: If you're a Cole Porter fan you might like the songs in De-Lovely, but as a portrait of an unusual marriage it's de-lumbering, de-liberate and de-cidedly flat. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: The kind of escapist entertainment that has one hunting for an escape route. Read more

Peter Rainer, New York Magazine/Vulture: The results ... are staid, with re-creations of Paris in the Jazz Age and Hollywood in its Golden Age that are like waxworks in motion. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: It's hard to imagine the real Porter sitting still for this kind of film. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: Despite that gaffe and the underwhelming singing of a couple of pop stars on the soundtrack, De-Lovely has much de-loveliness about it. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: If for no other reason (and there are assuredly other reasons), I recommend De-Lovely to my readers for its honorable role in opening another door to our ridiculously repressed past. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: You have the creepy sense of watching adult children (with the singular exception of Mr. Kline, who can surmount any disaster) dressed up in period costume at a school pageant. Read more

Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel: Porter's songs keep much the film afloat when, otherwise, it would have sunk. No matter how turgid or murky the movie becomes, when the music starts, you're flying. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: As a bio-pic, De-Lovely is pretty standard, run-of-the-mill stuff. However, as a 'best hits' collection of Cole Porter's music, it is unparalleled. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The movie contains more music than most musicals, yet is not a concert film because the songs seem to rise so naturally out of the material and illuminate it. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: What worse hell could a showman endure than a tin-eared procession of his greatest hits? Read more

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Better than a root canal, marginally superior to Gigli, but bad enough. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: The songs are too plentiful, even for a musical, and pop up with no discernible rhyme or reason -- they aren't performed in chronological order and often fail to fit even the mood of a scene. Read more

Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine: You enter a movie with that title, prepared to be enchanted. You straggle out a couple of hours later, lost in a fog of gloom. Read more

Time Out: Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Kevin Kline does a fine job portraying Porter as he's written. But the script is missing much of the complexity and some of the humanity of the composer. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: Keeping it all alive through all the dramatic ups and down, and limited psychological and emotional complexity, is Kline. Read more

J. Hoberman, Village Voice: Spike Jones or 'Weird Al' Yankovic could scarcely have been more jarring than the gaggle of preening pop stars invited to camp on the classics. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: Surprisingly uninvolving. Read more