Paris, 1900. From the moment the show began—all sepia and grainy like an old silent film—I was charmed but wary. Would the much-touted Moulin Rouge be too self-consciously vintage? Would its preciousness disgust me? What would the sets look like? Why have I never noticed how much Ewan McGregor resembles Kenneth Branagh? (It must be the beard.) Should I go to the bathroom now, or wait until the halfway point?

In the film, McGregor plays a poor, bohemian writer named Christian. Nicole Kidman plays Satine, a courtesan who coughs up blood all the time. Naturally, they fall clumsily in love and have all sorts of "problems," but I'll get back to that. My favorite person in the cast is John Leguizamo, who is fabulous as Toulouse-Lautrec, the eccentric, diminutive painter famous for his haunting scenes of Paris, especially the Moulin Rouge night club. When this character is introduced, I find myself thinking, now wouldn't a film about him be better than yet another rehash of La Boheme? I loved Rent, but how many more times can this story be told? I'm afraid it's going to turn into another Hamlet, with every theatre company on the planet wanting to do its own "Brilliant!" and "Innovative!" version. We've already seen Hamlet redone with a biker gang, with New York businessmen, and even with the secondary characters getting all the attention (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead). I keep waiting for the iteration in which Hamlet, Gertrude, and Ophelia are performed by actors in penguin suits. Except maybe the penguins would be speaking Danish, you see, to preserve a thread of connection to the original. Amazing! Breathtaking! The ultimate coming-of-age story!

As you can see, I was a little skeptical from the outset.

The thing that everyone knows about Moulin Rouge is that the characters spontaneously break into anachronistic songs, the first of which is "The Sound of Music." McGregor has a less than stellar voice, but his toothy grin lets him pull it off decently. Kidman wisely chooses the breathy voice of a torch singer much of the time. The music works pretty well overall, and most of the imported songs don't seem out of place, even when they probably should (like the "Voulez-vous"/"Smells Like Teen Spirit" medley). The use of that sinister tango version of "Roxanne" was inspired, especially juxtaposed against McGregor's impossibly earnest voice, singing "you're free to leave me, just don't deceive me." It's not totally seamless, of course, and sometimes the actors themselves don't seem completely comfortable with their musical dialogue. But I enjoyed the device. I have a deep and abiding love for all things bizarre, and a bunch of Parisian guys in top hats singing "Like a Virgin" definitely qualifies.

Near the start, there was a weird scene where the Moulin Rouge dancers were spinning really fast on the floor like in Carnival of Souls. I was a little creeped out by this. Even if I didn't know this was the same guy who did the new Romeo and Juliet (Leguizamo was brilliant in that one, too, as the irascible Tybalt), I would have figured it out from the manic camera work. Do you remember that scene where Leonardo drops acid and the party is swimming all around him and Mercutio is dancing around in a silver bra? This is what most of Moulin Rouge feels like to me. Not that it's a bad thing. It certainly conveys the kind of absinthe-splashed chaos that was present in the boho Paris underworld at the turn of the last century. (Incidentally, I actually visited the Moulin Rouge a number of years ago. The atmosphere had changed considerably from the decadent days of Toulouse-Lautrec. Now, it's just a trendy hangout for young locals and tourists, the latter of which can always be identified by their conservative dining choices. I myself had a hot dog. Mon chien a chaud.)

The movie is surprisingly funny, too. There are plenty of Hope/Crosby-style antics that can only be described as "hijinks." And the remarkably choreographed dance numbers have the exuberance of my favorite Gene Kelly musicals, replete with cheesy backdrops and dancing on clouds and all that bit. The moon even sings opera. Later, when the film gets a little mawkish, Toulouse-Lautrec and his drunken band of cronies add some much-needed humor, shuffling around and wisecracking like Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Zeppo, and Gummo (remember Gummo?).

Now's the part where I admit that I liked it. Despite the fact that this is an old story, it still feels kind of fresh. Baz Luhrman took a lot of chances here, and I think for the most part the film was a success. It was certainly strange enough to keep me captivated, and even got me crying at one point (the way I always do whenever I see a grown man break down and sob like a little bitty baby).

The thing that irritates me, though, is that so much of the plot is driven by false-dilemma fallacies. I mean, the only way out is for her to abandon him? What about running away? Sure, she's dying, but wouldn't she rather spend her final days in blissful seclusion, in the arms of the penniless writer, than prostituting herself for that idiotic Duke guy? Yeah, he said he's going to kill Christian, but maybe if they went BACK TO ENGLAND, WHERE HE LIVES, he'd be safe. The Duke seems too ineffectual to even tie his own shoes, much less track down a couple of bohemians who've fled across the Channel. I know this is the way it was in the original La Boheme, but it bothers me. There is only one thing in this story that they honestly can't change—Satine's death—and they might even be able to do something about that, if they'd just take her to a hospital instead of chanting "The show must go on!" like Sarah Bernhardt's deranged parrot or something.

So there I was at the end, and Christian was typing "A love that will live forever" on his ancient Underwood. This, coupled with that infernal minor key, made me think maybe Satine would come back as a zombie. That'd be kind of cool.

P.S. If you're mad about me telling the ending, too bad. Aside from the familiarity of the story, Satine is coughing like a TB-ridden Doc Holliday from the very beginning, so it doesn't take a nuclear physicist to figure out she's not going to be in the Willard Scott club.