Part of A Celebration of Nicole Kidman
In the grand visual style and spectacle of director Baz Luhrmann, this celebration of love and creative inspiration takes place in the infamous, gaudy and glamorous Parisian nightclub, at the cusp of the 20th century. A young poet (Ewan McGregor), who is plunged into the heady world of Moulin Rouge, begins a passionate affair with the club’s most notorious and beautiful star (Nicole Kidman). Luhrmann captures his euphorically high-style vision of a tragic-comical, glamorous underworld through a contemporary lens. The result recreates the heady, decadent thrills that enthralled patrons of the Moulin Rouge over a century ago.
“McGregor's generous, openhearted performance warms up Kidman's alabaster-cool beauty. Both stars hurl themselves into the movie's reckless spirit, unafraid of looking foolish, adroitly attuned to Luhrmann's abrupt swings from farce to tragedy.... MOULIN ROUGE seems to defy esthetic gravity: by reveling in all things artificial, it arrives, giddily, at the genuine.” —David Ansen, Newsweek (May 27, 2001) “Kidman owns this movie and steals scene after scene from her co-stars with a sizzling and scandalous performance.” —Gary Wolcott, Tri-City Herald (Jun 1, 2001) “A transporting, tremendously openhearted, and deeply endearing film that uses the setting of one century and the songs of another to reinvent the musical for the next. In the process, [Baz Luhrmann] creates a film that in the best sense is, for all its borrowed parts, like nothing else.” —Keith Phillips, A.V. Club
