Still, I can frankly remark that "Chicago" is impeccably composed and boasts countless sparks of ingenuity. To undertake an adaptation of the adored Bob Fosse musical and not be lynched by the Broadway coterie is a feat in itself, and Marshall outdid himself with splendid juxtapositions of fantasy and reality. In an especially well-orchestrated sequence, he spliced bits of the heroine's humiliating arrest with her daydreams of being a star performer, gluing them together with the soundtrack to make for a seamless presentation.
Catherine Zeta-Jones is a perfect match for the feline Velma Kelly, an accomplished cabaret growler who is behind bars for killing her husband and sister when she discovered their affair. The actress's confidence and strength of character that stopped "Traffic" is equally enticing in this film, and her low voice is velvety but manages to grate enough to soundly warn the audience of Kelly's ferocity. Zeta-Jones's beauty is a powerful one, and the steady performance behind it does not disappoint. Renée Zellweger, however, is not the right actress for the part of Roxie, a hopeful showgirl who doesn't regret murdering her lover and ruthlessly clawing to the top of the Chicago nightclub circuit. Zellweger is a fabulous actress who, in my opinion, put forth a greater effort than any of her fellow cast members. The effort was remarkable, but that's just it; it was clearly labored. An unremorseful killer and one who coldly calculates her way to success? I don't think so. Her puppy eyes, that soft, cooing voice ... Zellweger can manage moments of disappointment or anguish well, but she is unconvincing with a gun in her hand or an insult on her tongue, and her contrived moments on stage didn't nearly rival those of Zeta-Jones, a natural-born femme fatale. Zellweger is too sweet to have a dark side.
The problem with glitter is its composition-it is a million tiny mirrors, and although they are polished well in "Chicago," they are still mirrors, which only reflect and cannot illustrate anything beyond their shiny surfaces. I agree,"Chicago" is well done, but I prefer depth. Aside from some casting errors, "Chicago" is the best of its kind at its best-but to appreciate its merits, you have to be a sucker for "all that jazz."
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When Renée Zellweger first surfaced in our collective consciousness as the breathless bonbon of "Jerry Maguire," it was hard to imagine her convincingly inhabiting any role that required her to manifest more grit than a beetle. But Zellweger transcends her very persona to play the heartless Roxie Hart. The role is no cake-walk: it calls for alternating bouts of innocence, cold-heartedness, calculatedly insincere sweetness, desperation and finally blatant, discomfortingly hard-nosed cynicism. You cringe every time she sets out to shoulder the musical's cynical satire; that despite her Kewpie-doll face and skeletal figure, she effortlessly makes the laden role her own, gives the character and the story the necessary "oomph" to avoid being overshadowed by the dancing and jazz.
Unfortunately, the same can't be said for Catherize Zeta-Jones, who plays legendary murderess Velma Kelly. The problem is that Zeta-Jones' ripe-rose lusciousness is too right for the part; some kind of surprise is required in the performance for her to manage to appropriate the role. She's at her best in the opening number "All That Jazz," at which point her hard-eyed beauty is effective thanks to its novelty. But as the film progresses, there's no change; her performance is frustratingly one-noted, and while she coasts by on her throaty voice and mesmerizingly lovely face, she pales in comparison to her ingenuous costar.
I saw the 1996 Broadway revival of "Chicago" a few years ago, and for my money this film version is enormously more appealing and affective. Perhaps it's because the intimacy of the story's settings-a smoky jazz lounge, a dark, cramped jail-is so well conveyed on a giant screen, and not at all in a cavernous, anonymous hall. But the more likely reason for the film's success is Bill Condon's and Rob Marshall's brilliant stroke in adapting the cabaret scenes so that they take place in Roxie's head. Considering the film's fame-at-any-cost motif, having the musical numbers be a part of her single-track psyche adds a dimension to the film that the stage show lacks. I imagine that the bite of the satire was sharp upon its initial release in the '70s; today, even this extreme vision of a celebrity-obsessed culture is hardly radical enough to be jarring. The cleverness of the adaptation gives it the necessary edge to lift the film from a successful exercise in nostalgia to a production that can resonate equally for a "Chicago" virgin and a "Chicago" veteran.
Marshall's film is, uncharacteristic to the musical tradition, visually bare, a stark contrast to the only other recent success in the genre, "Moulin Rouge." Like Luhrmann, Marshall knew how precisely to create form to serve function, and where the former film's excess was the ideal illustration of Luhrmann's intention of reawakening the senses, "Chicago's" cleanly contrasting colors-rich blacks, whites, blues, reds-and lack of adornment perfectly offset the dark humor and blithe depravity of a story that makes murder exhilarating in a most blameless way.