Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

SnoopyStyle Cole Porter (Kevin Kline) has his life flash in front of him in the form of a musical as he fades from the world. Gabriel (Jonathan Pryce) is beside him. Linda Porter (Ashley Judd) is his wife and love of his life despite him being a bisexual.This is filled with Cole Porter's great classics. As a musical, this would appeal to any of his fans. There are some unusual voices from modern music doing the singing. As a story, there is a problem. It struggles to gather any tension. Linda is so giving and such a friend to Cole that there is only limited drama. His life is not devoid of drama but nothing that is more tragic than everybody else. One thing that the movie misses is Cole Porter's inspiration and the work of his writing. It's got plenty of song and dance but limited intensity.

nicholls_les Awful movie that just doesn't get it right in my book.I think the main problem is the way the story is portrayed. Trying to be a kind of Meet Joe Black that Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins did so brilliantly, it just doesn't work here at all.Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd are very good but struggle to make this in any way interesting. Jonathan Pryce is awful, but then again he seems to spoil every movie he is in. By far the worst Bond villain ever.There are lots of musical cameos featuring British singers that again just do not work. Robbie Williams sang and looked OK but Mick Hucknall just didn't look right at all.This could have been a good movie but sadly it isn't.

TheLittleSongbird To be honest, while all the criticisms are very understandable, and I actually agree with them, I was expecting something worse than how De-Lovely turned out. It is a long way from a great film, or even a good film, but to me it wasn't terrible.De-Lovely does have a good deal of good things. The film looks fabulous, the period clothes are just exquisite, there was evidently a great deal of care and attention to detail in the scenery and settings and the cinematography sparkles. The ageing make-up is very well done as well. Cole Porter's songs are wonderful, the best of them gold standard classics and while some of the songs deserved better treatment than they got others are very well performed, the best being John Barrowman's Night and Day, Natalie Cole's beautiful Every Time We Say Goodbye, Alanis Morissette's Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love and Kevin Kline's sublime So in Love. The first half is suitably witty and sophisticated, the aftermath of the riding accident is movingly done(an improvement over how it was depicted in Night and Day with Cary Grant, which I found superior actually despite its flaws) and Porter and Linda's relationship is well-depicted. Ashley Judd plays Linda with dignity and Jonathan Pryce enjoys himself but other than the production values the best thing about the film was Kevin Kline's brilliant performance as Porter, a witty, charming and moving performance.Unfortunately, De-Lovely takes a nose-dive in the second half, feeling like a different film altogether, the pacing becomes leaden and the narrative becomes very jumpy with some ideas touched upon and not explored enough. Due to the gross number of inaccuracies and the change in chronological order of the songs and events makes the storytelling hard to follow. There is some really sloppy editing, and in general Irwin Winkler's very stylised direction becomes increasingly self-indulgent and manages to be hectic and ponderous. In the second half the wit and sophistication the first half had is completely lost with a lot of the writing becoming incredibly trite and awkward, Porter's sexuality is much too overt(the opposite effect of the glossed over effect Night and Day had) and the film overall is lacking in emotional connection narratively and stylistically. Too many of the song renditions don't work, Elvis Costello's singing style is ill-suited to Let's Misbehave(he also does little with the wit of the lyrics), Lemar is completely out of place and worst of all Begin the Beguine is execrably arranged and performed to the point of being unrecognisable, with tuneless and emotionless singing from Sheryl Crow, sounding like she isn't even listening to the music.In conclusion, not that bad but should have been much better. 5/10 Bethany Cox

bob_bear I wanted to think of a wittier summary but "rubbish" pretty much sums it up.Kline portrays Porter with the same shallow, prissiness that he applied to his character in "In & Out". He does self-obsessed and superficial very well...which is more than can be said for his singing.The bio-pic is inaccurate and misleading. Nothing I have read about Porter would lead me to believe that Linda was the great love of his life or that she inspired his lyrics. So the "love story" aspect was a non-starter from the get-go.The idea of Porter watching his life played out on stage was an interesting premise but the execution was woeful. Especially the big finish with "Blow, Gabriel! Blow!" which was embarrassingly bad.Why James Wilby, Kevin McNally or Keith Allen got involved I do not know. Their characters were so superfluous.I nearly switched off after fifteen minutes. In the event, I should have trusted my nose. It could smell a stinker from the start.