Delayed Reaction: Burlesque

Premise: A small town girl movies to Los Angeles and finds her calling at a burlesque club.

 

The list of movies this reminded me of is all over the place. It aspires to be Cabaret. It gets uncomfortably close to Showgirls territory at points. I think it settles around a Coyote Ugly but with a cast that's befitting A Star is Born. Your opinion of the movie probably has a lot to do with what you thought it would be going in.

 

It's a hell of a cast. The supporting ranks are filled with the likes of Alan Cumming, Peter Gallagher, Kristen Bell, Eric Dane, and Stanley Tucci playing roles they're very comfortable with. Maybe not Kristen Bell. It's hard for her to read as a diva, but I'm happy to see her, Julianne Hough, and others do burlesque performances. Christina Aguilera is good enough that I'm surprised she's barely acted since. And she rocks the parts where she sings, which is why you cast her in this role. Cher is a freaking legend. Getting her for this movie is both a gift and a curse. She's an icon, and landing her for a movie like this gives it immediate legitimacy. Then again, it was her first significant film role in over a decade. Whatever she tapped into in Moonstruck was long gone, and every line delivery in this has the subtext "I'm Cher." The idea of casting Cher is getting someone who looks like they were fabulous and have fallen on hard times. However, Cher always looks fabulous and I can't see her and think she's ever had hard times.

 

This movie feels like it was reverse-engineered over a decade. Moulin Rouge became a critical hit. Christina Aguilera began her reinvention with Lady Marmalade. A couple years later, The Pussycat Dolls burlesque troupe got famous thanks to celebrity appearances, including Christina. The Oscar success of Chicago convinced everyone in Hollywood that people were ready for musicals to fully come back. Burlesque is a mix of all those forces coming together without actually understanding the appeal of burlesque. Burlesque is supposed to feel risqué and clever. There's a little of that on the margins, but the movie is incredibly safe overall. It was practically the Thanksgiving family offering in 2010, which could not be missing the point more. Just how much did the studio note this to death?

 

There's a little campy fun to the movie. Some of the singing and dancing is good. By no measure is it the movie that it feels like it should be though.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend