Kevin Kline. A Prolific, Mesmerizing Actor, Who Proves His Status Once Again by delivering a BRILLIANT Performance as composer Cole Porter in 'De-Lovely'. The Oscar-Winning Actor elevates this biopic with the sheer power of his performance.'De-Lovely' Synopsis: Inspecting a magical biographical stage musical, composer Cole Porter reviews his life and career with his wife, Linda.As a biopic, 'De-Lovely' explores the Journey of Cole Porter, with sincerity. Jay Cocks's Screenplay Nicely Executes the entire journey of the talented personality. Irwin Winkler's Direction is under-stated. The Songs are wonderfully sung.Performance-Wise: As Mentioned Before, Kline delivers a BRILLIANT Performance as Cole Porter. The Versatile Actor is at his very best! Ashley Judd as his wife Linda, is equally terrific & compliments Kline in every level. Jonathan Pryce supports well. Kevin McNally & Sandra Nelson are perfect. Others lend good support.On the whole, 'De-Lovely' is a good film, with a sterling performance by Kline.

De-Lovely is excellent. I am pretty surprised that there are no Academy award nominations for it. The sound track is simply wonderful. Cole Porter's life is biographically and aesthetically portrayed by the director. The two leads, Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd, are perfectly cast and perform beyond perfection in it. That this is a mixture of gay and straight relational behavior in the same man is deftly depicted, and represents the period well. The sets and the choreography in many of the song and dance numbers brought me back to brighter times. A few of the singing extras did not quite capture the period perfectly, perhaps (Ms Morissette comes to mind), but the songs are all so wonderful, so that it is easy to forget. The director, Irwin Winkler, had to try to make a biographical tale depicting the music the man created in his lifetime, which he did wonderfully, while all the time giving the leads free reign to portray real human beings who loved each other, while continually pondering who, exactly, they themselves really were. Mr Winkler uses something of an artist's brush to pull this thing off so well. Not an easy task given the hidden (gay) subject matter of Cole Porters other life.

This is one of the most ambitious musicals I've seen in a long while. It openly challenges the rules & format of every standard musical you've ever seen (as with the irony of the quote in my title), and it even goes so far as to challenge the distinction between what we see on screen vs. what's going on backstage--breaking down the proverbial "4th wall" to include the audience while at the same time setting up 4 new walls to distance us even further from the action. It's very, very cleverly done. At times you wonder if the film is all a joke, a dream or some some bizarre Ebeneezer Scrooge visitation by Xmas spirits. That, to me, is what surrealism should be about. Not just crazy random images à la Luis Buñuel's early work, but taking the audience to a level somewhere above reality and below total fantasy.Warning, though. This film requires a great deal of patience. I almost shut it off twice in the first 45 mins because I didn't catch the point of it all. And not being well versed in the music of Cole Porter nor interested in lifestyles of the 40s rich & famous, I came >>this close<< to ejecting the disc and watching reruns of I Dream of Jeannie instead. But I'm glad I stuck around.Cole Porter, as portrayed, is not necessarily a likable character. His brazen infidelity and elitist attitude will offend the puritans amongst us. His homosexual escapades will undoubtedly freak out guys who aren't comfortable with the subject (hence the low IMDb rating? I'm just guessing). But by the time it's over, I guarantee he will have hit some kind of chord with everyone. Whether that's due to Kevin Klein's excellent performance or something more subtle & thematic, I don't know.Ashley Judd is absolutely amazing. This is the first time I saw her as a legitimate actor, not just a musician-crossover-actor-wannabe. In fact it was Ashley's dynamic performance that got me over the hump of boredom/confusion I mentioned earlier.The music - sort of a mixed review here. Although I'm an Alanis Morissette fan, I don't think her vocal style, with its excessive vibrato & modern twang, complimented the nostalgic era depicted in the film. So we lose points there. Similarly, Elvis Costello stuck out as being a bit too stylish for the dated material. On the other hand, Cheryl Crow delivers a beautiful, haunting version of "Begin the Beguine". Natalie Cole was OK. Ashley Judd herself sings one song, and I thought it was very memorable. And Kevin Klein--great job (though cleverly, we are told up front that Cole Porter never had a great singing voice. That gets Kev off the hook). Overall, good music. If I were more familiar with Cole Porter tunes, I'm sure I would like it even more.Well, here I am wrapping up another long-winded review. And as always, if you read all the way through this, then I think you have the patience to handle a complex film like this. Enjoy it!

I can agree that in terms of story this film deserves only two stars out of five, but I have given it an extra star because of the wonderful songs. Basically it is the biopic about musician and songwriter Cole Porter (Golden Globe nominated Kevin Kline), and the story sees him reminiscing to Gabe (Jonathan Pryce) about his past, as his life is to be portrayed in a stage musical. Even knowing he was gay, Linda Porter (Double Jeopardy's Golden Globe nominated Ashley Judd) marries him, and it is a three part story first in Venice and Paris, then success grows in New York and Hollywood, and the last act having Cole being crippled, but thankfully not spoiling his career. Also starring Kevin McNally as Gerald Murphy, Allan Corduner as Monty Woolley, Sandra Nelson as Sara Murphy, Keith Allen as Irving Berlin, James Wilby as Edward Thomas, John Barrowman as the Night and Day performer, Kevin McKidd as Bobby Reed and Peter Polycarpou as Louis B. Mayer, with musical performances by Robbie Williams, Elvis Costello, Alanis Morissette, Sheryl Crow, Mick Hucknall and Lemar. It is great to see the stars and real singers singing some fantastic songs written by Porter for stage and films, including "It's De-Lovely", "What is This Thing Called Love", "Let's Misbehave", "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love", "Anything Goes", "Begin the Beguine" and "Be a Clown". I didn't pay that much attention to the story, but for the songs, this is entertaining enough. Worth watching!