SnoopyStyle Cole Porter (Kevin Kline) has his life flash in front of him in the form of a musical as he fades from the world. Gabriel (Jonathan Pryce) is beside him. Linda Porter (Ashley Judd) is his wife and love of his life despite him being a bisexual.This is filled with Cole Porter's great classics. As a musical, this would appeal to any of his fans. There are some unusual voices from modern music doing the singing. As a story, there is a problem. It struggles to gather any tension. Linda is so giving and such a friend to Cole that there is only limited drama. His life is not devoid of drama but nothing that is more tragic than everybody else. One thing that the movie misses is Cole Porter's inspiration and the work of his writing. It's got plenty of song and dance but limited intensity.

Armand not a biographic movie. only sketch of a career, shadows of a life, search of happiness, nuances of a gift, small pieces of a way to define essence and a love story like a palmer in storm. a delight. for actors - Kevin Kline is extraordinary, Ashley Judd - definition of fragility, for music, old, good and nostalgic, for labyrinth of a man personality, for post- death analysis, for the science of detail and art of show as cake cream. for courage to create a character far from public image - seductive, cold, strange and very vulnerable. for homo erotic page as few drops of cinnamon. for a fake easy comedy who gives questions, seeds and any answer. for recreation of a era. and for the joy to be, for more than 100 minutes part of a game , part, in secret, of yourself.

mso88 Brilliantly staged, superb performances by Kevin Kline and Jon Pryce, and those great Cole Porter songs (the reason for buying the DVD). And yet this film is profoundly strange, lurching between musical and biopic, as ambivalent as Porter's sexual orientation. Screenwriter Jay Cock's tone-deaf dialogue saps critically-needed energy from the film while characters stop the action to deliver formal speeches rather fire clever quips from the hip. But what can we expect from a film-critic-turned screenwriter? De Lovely needs more stacatto Hollywood dialogue that matches the style, grace, and elegance of the art direction and cast performances. DeLovely is actually 2 films at war with one another: an elegant, snappy musical versus a dull, literary biopic. And the winner is the musical.

bob_bear I wanted to think of a wittier summary but "rubbish" pretty much sums it up.Kline portrays Porter with the same shallow, prissiness that he applied to his character in "In & Out". He does self-obsessed and superficial very well...which is more than can be said for his singing.The bio-pic is inaccurate and misleading. Nothing I have read about Porter would lead me to believe that Linda was the great love of his life or that she inspired his lyrics. So the "love story" aspect was a non-starter from the get-go.The idea of Porter watching his life played out on stage was an interesting premise but the execution was woeful. Especially the big finish with "Blow, Gabriel! Blow!" which was embarrassingly bad.Why James Wilby, Kevin McNally or Keith Allen got involved I do not know. Their characters were so superfluous.I nearly switched off after fifteen minutes. In the event, I should have trusted my nose. It could smell a stinker from the start.