Yesterday morning, this writer braved frigid temperatures to make a press screening of
“Nine,” only to come out of it wondering why we bothered leaving the house in the first place. We liked the film even less than the EIC, but, if two hours spent with a self-loathing womanizer with low self-esteem seems like a fun time to you, who knows, you might like it.
But we digress. If you are interested in seeing “Nine” you might want to stop reading here as spoilers are revealed below.
Anyway, the Rob Marshall directed film was initially written by Michael Tolkin, with Anthony Minghella hired to do a final polish. According to Playbill, that last pass turned out to be an entire rewrite, with a brand new ending. “Nine,” a twice removed adaptation is based on the hit Broadway show, which is itself inspired by Frederico Fellini’s seminal “8 1/2.” In the original film – and in Tolkin’s draft – the picture ends with the director on the beach, surrounded by the people in his life, in a celebratory dance. According to Tolkin, it was Minghella’s idea to end “Nine” back in Cinecetta studios, with the director finally going to back to work: ““It was Anthony’s really brilliant idea, to take the scene we had outside and move it inside back to the soundstage so that it could be the movie. The last line in the film — the last word Anthony wrote — was ‘Action!’ If you have to go, there’s no better way to end for a director and writer as talented as Anthony was.”
Its a poignant story, especially since Minghella would shortly check himself into the hospital for the last time after turning it in, and to the filmmakers credit, they did that final scene justice. In the otherwise wobbly and dramatically inert film, the ending is one of rare moments that manages to actually evoke the magic of filmmaking and the passion that has driven Gudio Contini for so many years (and that ironically Marshall has difficulty finding in his take on the material). It’s a nice scene and the filmmakers should be grateful that Minghella left them with one last gift before he passed on.