There's been much written about Luhrmann's bravery in making a musical in this day and age, but I don't think he could make a movie that didn't have music as its heartbeat -- he's been making secret musicals all along. Even so, he takes a leap with "Moulin Rouge," and the gamble mostly pays off. The musical numbers range from extravagantly, gorgeously nuts (Satine's exhilarating opening scene, where she descends from the ceiling on a swing, purring "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend") to heart-joltingly touching and funny (Christian awkwardly wooing Satine with Elton John's "Your Song," at first reciting the words as if he's just pulling them off the top of his head). "Moulin Rouge" is a musical for the age of sampling, and yet it's oddly true to the spirit of the era in which it takes place. These characters, going about their business at the turn of the last century, find resonance in songs like "Heroes," "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and "Like a Virgin," without ever seeming stupidly anachronistic.

Some of the musical numbers blaze with unnecessary garishness. That would be less troublesome if it didn't detract from the work of the movie's two leads, whose mere presence is enough to fill the screen sufficiently. McGregor underplays his character's suffering -- he understands the distinction between melodrama and camp, in that the former can easily encompass nobility while the latter can only caricature it. His charm enfolds everything from the way he stammers when he's trying to open Satine to his love, to the suffering he holds like a noble vessel, chiefly in his eyes and in the roll of his shoulders, when tragedy sinks down upon him. McGregor's profound inner dignity always keeps him grounded; it also seems to be the underpinning to his appealing goofiness and humming sensuality.

He lavishes both of those things, with tenderness and generosity, on his costar Kidman as Satine. Kidman has rarely looked so beautiful. Pale, luminous, cracklingly sexual and with a protective veneer that's both as hard and as delicate as an eggshell -- she's a cross between Rita Hayworth and a John Singer Sargent painting. When she's playing the showgirl, she cannily navigates the psychology of the biz with all its attendant bravado and feigned vulnerability: Her eyes look catlike and calculating, peeking out from behind those devilish Titian waves. But when she's playing the lover, the girl who's become enchanted by a handsome boy with no money, she's heartbreakingly girlish. Even her glamorous showgirl clothes seem to sit differently on her body. She makes a satin gown look like a tailored shirtwaist, a repository of warmth and womanly secrets.

That Kidman, McGregor and most of the other actors in "Moulin Rouge" do their own singing (mostly surprisingly well) is more than just a charming touch. It's an affirmation of the whole cast's commitment to Luhrmann's outlandish, go-for-broke vision: How far will you go to risk the audience's ridicule? And can you continue to believe in yourself, even if they laugh at you?

	Moulin Rouge Directed by Baz Luhrmann Starring Ewan McGregor, Nicole Kidman, John Leguizamo, Jim Broadbent View the "Moulin Rouge" movie trailer RealVideo 56k | 200k Print story E-mail story

That vision, and the actors' pledge to it, is what makes "Moulin Rouge," messiness and all, so moving. Like a movie version of Mad King Ludwig's Bavarian fairytale castle, it's a mishmash of decoration, drapery and debauchery that's both deeply pleasurable and kitschy. It may not be the kind of place you'd actually want to live in. But after you've seen it, its rooms magically reassemble themselves in your memory, and the colors are softer, the vibe is warmer and there's love in every corner. "Moulin Rouge" is l'amour fou written in neon.

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