Down to a sunless sea

If I lived in New York City, I would by now have seen the current Broadway musical of Xanadu, the notoriously bad 1980 Hollywood musical. The stage show is supposedly good, campy fun. Sadly, the movie is not. I saw it when it first came out and I remember how dispiriting it was to sit and watch as so many things went so wrong. 27 years later, I borrowed the movie from the library to see if I could find anything redeeming in the experience. I could not.

Olivia Newton-John is a muse named Kira who comes to life, zooming off of an alley mural in Los Angeles, to help inspire two lonely people: an insipid and whiny commercial artist (Michael Beck) who hates his job--and seems to have no life outside of his work at a record company--and a retired night club owner (Gene Kelly) who has an itch to get back in the business. Kira skates around Hollywood and brings the two guys together to open a fabulous roller disco called Xanadu in an abandoned theater.

The fantasy plot has potential, but no attention is paid to dialogue or characterization. Beck is intensely unlikeable, Newton-John can look nice but has little else going for her, and virtually all the actors read their lines like they're at a community theater rehearsal. The one exception is Kelly who actually does seem to be trying. At almost 70, he is livelier than either one of his co-stars. The potential for an interesting romance between a mortal and an immortal (as in The Bishop's Wife) is wasted: Kira is "freed" by the gods to be with Beck at the end, but we get no sense of what this means for her. Beck, for a romantic leading man, is remarkably asexual and, did I already say, unlikeable. Another wasted plot point has to do with the fact the Kira had materialized to Kelly back in the 40's to be his muse, and he sort of recognizes her in the present day, but this is not developed. As my partner who, God love his soul, endured this movie with me, noted, there is not a drop of dramatic tension. Nothing is at stake. There are no major obstacles for anyone to overcome. The music is OK (that damn "Have to believe we are magic" song is lodged in my head now) and one production number which combines music and dance from the 40's and 80's is sort of fun, but too overblown to be truly enjoyable. If you have a yen for Xanadu, either go to Broadway or read Coleridge.