Garoo

It’s surprising to see a musical that doesn’t pretend and tell a story. Here there’s no great love story, no life struck by fate, only a bunch of characters doing their number, good cabaret full of humor and irony, a critique of the media and fame that you can hardly believe was written thirty years ago, and it works all the better as the subject is ideal for a movie adaptation. I (obviously?) didn’t see Chicago on stage, but the movie can only do it justice: it’s not an adaptation, just an ideally filmed captation of the songs and choreographies, sprinkled with flawless cinematographic scenes.

It’s all so perfect, I can only hope the director didn’t have any say when it came to casting. Renee Zellweger, as ideal as she is as the little, stupid, ambitious country girl, isn’t believable for a second as “the cute one” (and I apologize for the rudeness, but she’s way too flat to be the movie’s bimbo); Richard Gere is in character too, but has absolutely no singing voice and I cry remembering the stage excerpts I saw on TV; Catherine Zeta-Jones is… uh… what’s she doing here? She dances perfectly and is a real musical singer, I can’t believe it. I never had any particular interest in her, and now I’m hooked. A beautiful woman with a Broadway roar, that’s something else than the amazement in front of Nicole Kidman’s being able to sing in tune for Moulin Rouge.

No I’ve got to send my troops to scout Kazaa for her old, unknown singles. Why didn’t she release an album since Chicago? Why is it that the only actresses who release records are the Love Hewitt or Lopez Jennifers?