De-Lovely

I just finished a movie about Cole Porter's life. First of all, yay, Ashley Judd! I like her as an actress (She was also good in [heart to heart??], as the mother of several young children in the movie where Natalie Portman's character lives in the WalMart for a while).

Moving on to the main gist of the story, the overarching theme of the movie seems to be Cole Porter getting his moment of reviewing his life, before he dies. It shows his rise in fame into the Hollywood scene.

I don't think I'd ever heard anything...."unseemly" about Cole Porter's life, but apparently he and his wife, Linda, had a fairly "open" marriage, at least on Cole's part. It seemed that Linda was willing to give up almost everything, and look the other way at some of his unfaithful behavior, in order to keep Cole himself, with her. This just seems so sad in some ways, since she seems to be getting the "dregs," once he's found all of his recreational activities and gotten bored. He is portrayed as truly loving her in the movie, though, but if a man truly loves a woman, will he continue to do things that hurt her, just because she's willing to give up any claims on his faithfulness, in order to have his presence? In fairness, it does seem that Linda grows increasingly dissatisfied with this situation, while perhaps she was in fact fully on board, initially.

Cole Porter was also apparently in a fairly serious horseback riding accident. As portrayed in the movie, the horse reared up and then Cole and the horse both fell, with the horse rolling over and harming Cole's legs (one of which was eventually amputated).

I guess it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that an entertainer's life was so wild....it's to the point nowadays when the mild life of a Hollywood entertainer is the exception. Some of it does seem a bit shocking though, not having come across the information before. The whole thing seemed rather sad. Cole seemed rather ...empty...with all of his various affairs and one night stands, but he does "faithfully" (or as faithfully as he seems to be able) nurse Linda when her health deteriorates and she ultimately dies.

I actually did not fully understand the very end of the movie. Cole has friends and his companion (chosen before her death by his wife Linda) over to his house...and then basically chases them off. I'm not quite sure if it's that he's supposed to know that he's about to die and wants to be alone, or what. They both apparently loved Paris, and at the very end it segues back to a scene, that I think is supposed to be earlier in his life, when they were in Paris. I think it's maybe supposed to be a reminder of happier times, when Cole and Linda were newly together and fully in love.