Murder, For Fun and Profit

I am not a fan of musicals, something I have stated more than once. Musicals don't generally work for me because, in most situations, the story comes to a dead stop so we can spend five minutes on a song that could be handled in a couple of lines of dialogue. The stop-start nature of pacing bothers me, and it takes the right kind of musical that can blend story and song in a way that keeps the flow moving forward. Most musicals, especially from the height of the Hollywood musical boom (1940s through 1960s, before the art-form crashed and burned) had more song than substance, and while I get they were trying to evoke "mood", they didn't give me enough story to keep me interested.

Chicago (as least the 2002 film version) is a musical that blends story and song in a way that keeps my attention. I can't speak to how the stage musical does it (because, for obvious reasons about my dislike of musicals, I've never seen the stage production) but the theatrical film manages to create a really interesting sense of stage-versus-reality that allows both song and story to play out in a weird coexistence. I don't think any other musical could pull off this trick, or do it with quite the gusto as Chicago, but because of the way the film was directed and edited, it works so well in the context. It creates a compelling musical that, by it own setup, is able to explain why people spontaneously break out into song for no reason. And, in the process, it weaves everything together into a fast-paced, and very interesting, whole.

The film centers on two characters: Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones), a famous jazz dancer who, with her twin sister, has a regular stage act of some notoriety, and Roxie Hart (Renee Zellweger), a housewife with dreams of making it big on the stage. On a night in 1924, Velma arrives at her performance alone, without her sister. She gets up and does a show-stopping performance of "All That Jazz" right before getting arrested for the murder of her sister and her husband (who, as we learn, were sleeping together). Meanwhile, in the audience, is Roxie, dreaming of making it big. She goes home with Fred Casely (Dominic West), a man who promises he can get her up on that stage. They end up sleeping together that night, and every night after for a month, right up until Fred reveals that he doesn't have any connections to the club and, in fact, can't help Roxie out at all. He abusively dismisses her after using her, so she shoots him.

By the time the police arrive Roxie has already convinced her soft and kind husband, Amos (John C. Reilly), to take the fall, saying he was defending his home. But once Amos realizes what actually was going on between Roxie and Fred, he recants his story, sending Roxie to jail. Now Roxie needs to find a way to escape the gallows for the murder. She needs a good attorney, who she finds in Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), but she also has to contend with the news cycle because if they papers get bored of her, any leverage she has in her own case goes out the window. It's a potential star-making murder for Roxie if she can just play her cards right.

The story of Chicago is all about women committing murder, but surprisingly the film never really judges them. We're not supposed to decide on the relative guilt of the women, in part because we know they're guilty but also because the women each have their reasons for doing what they do. Sometimes they're bad reasons, like a wife killing her husband because he loved popping his gum, but there's also an underlying thought that the reasons stated aren't always the whole reason. Sometimes there's abused that goes unreported, just another "normal" act in marriages of the time, and the women finally getting their revenge, whatever the reason, feels a least a little justified.

Curiously, the one murderess that we know, for a fact, is innocent is also the only one that actually ends up at the gallows (at least in the confines of what we see on screen). We have six women (not counting Roxie and a late addition that comes in near the two-thirds mark) all accused (or convicted) of murder and one who very clearly didn't do it but is still in jail regardless. She does end up being executed, which also says a lot about her circumstances and what happens to women who aren't lucky enough to get famous (who they get used up in other ways). This is a film with a strong female perspective (in large part because all the lead, and co-lead, characters, save two, are women) and that matters to the story.

What really makes the musical work is that, for the most part, the musical portion of the story is told from Roxie's mind. The film will inter cut the musical numbers, which are produced as if they were a stage show, with the real world from the perspective all the characters (who, in this context, don't sing), and it's pretty clear that this all exists within Roxie's head. She wants to be a stage performer so she sees everything that happens as if it were on the stage. The women telling her about their crimes is done as the "Cell Block Tango". her lawyer explaining how he'd put one over on the jury is told through the jazzy circus number "Razzle Dazzle". The glitz and glamour, which would feel out of place in a serious crime drama, can instead be visualized by Roxie herself to have the best of both worlds.

As a bonus, this allows the story to coincide along with the songs. You can have Billy Flynn presenting his case to the jury while an imagined version of his sings "Razzle Dazzle" and it keeps the pace trucking forward. Again, I don't know how the stage show does this, but it seems like you'd have to do each half separately instead of being able to combine them smoothly. Staging, costuming, and dialogue spliced with music would seem weird in a single stage but works perfectly well on screen with dynamic editing. The movie is smart about how it handles the material, keeping it all to a very tight 113 minutes.

Of course, the important thing to really know is that Roxie is pretty much a psycho. She spends all day in a world of her own invention and has a hard time understand how the rules of the real world actually work. Every song, save two, occur in her head, and that's because she doesn't really live in the real world. Those two song, of note, have their own explanations. One is Velma's "All That Jazz", which is a stage production in the real world (and even then Roxie imagines herself in the Velma role). The other is Amos's song, "Mister Cellophane", and while it's done as a stage performance in his head, he is married to her (so a little of her has clearly rubbed off on him) and it's also a perfect illustration of his feelings so I don't fault it slightly breaking the rules of the performance.

Roxie being ale to visualize all of this, though, creates that air of the artificial. It allows the production to use the setup and style of the stage show, creating a movie that feels more Broadway than you'd expect. It's interesting, and visually dynamic, so much more so than if these same characters were depicted in a cell block singing and dancing. That would feel artificial in a way that was, well, fake. Here, though, the artificiality plays to Roxie's character, though, and it doesn't break the "reality" of the film the same way. It's an interesting balance that, I think, makes the film far better than if they'd gone with a traditional setup and staging like classic musicals.

Helping matters is, of course, the fantastic cast who are not only more than game for their roles but also solid singers to boot. Gere, Zeta-Jones, and Reilly all have solid musical numbers for their characters and they perform their songs with aplomb. The weakest of the set is Zellweger who doesn't quite have the musical range needed for her role. There's a few times where a song is supposed to build to a crescendo and Zellweger just can quite bring the power needed for the part. It's not too terrible, but it is noticeable. With that said, what Zellweger brings instead is craziness; she manages to encompass all of Roxie's weird psychosis in her eyes and her bearing, playing a perfectly psychotic murderess interested in nothing but fame. You can see why she was cast in the role because while her singing may not be quite there (while never being truly terrible), her performance is perfect.

Researching this film, it's interesting to note that the original musical from 1976 wasn't a huge success. The 1926 film it was based on is largely forgotten, as was a 1942 adaptation of that original film. And yet, through time and favorable buzz, the musical found new life in a 1990s revival, and then, with this adaptation, went on to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. While this film isn't the most faithful version of the stage play (for all the changes it makes to have the film function as an actual film), it is a fantastic production in its own right. From humble beginnings came this great movie, one that can even win over those that hate musicals (like me).