A chorus girl always on the lookout for her big break, Roxie Hart (Renee Zellweger) is trapped in a dead-end marriage with a husband she does not love. Complicating matters is Roxie’s overactive imagination; she sees her own life as a third-person experience, a show in which she is the adored leading lady. After a boorish lover reneges on a promise to get her an important audition, she murders him and is sent to prison with the threat of death by hanging.
After enlisting the aid of flamboyant defense attorney Billy Flynn (Richard Gere), who is able to transform any courtroom into a stage, Roxie is thrust into the spotlight as a media darling, and her meteoric rise to fame incurs the envy of fellow inmate Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones), a fading Vaudeville star imprisoned for double homicide. Even a city as bustling as Chicago isn’t big enough for the both of them.
“Chicago” is a stinging satire of the modern justice system and the shadiness of stardom. As Billy notes before Roxie’s trial begins, the whole world is nothing but “show business.”
The design of the musical numbers is especially strong, with rich show-within-a-show staginess attached to them. From the circus feeling of “Razzle Dazzle” to the sparkling glamour “Roxie,” each number is its own fully realized event. The high point of the numbers may be the sharp, articulate staging of the “Cell Block Tango,” which stands alone as one of 2002s most electrifying cinema moments.
Cobbling all of this glitz together is editor Martin Walsh, who may very well win an Oscar for his expert work on this film. The shifts from reality to the theatrical world of Roxie’s imagination are crisp and often flawless. His finest work may be in the story’s heated courtroom finale, which cuts back and forth between real trial procedure and imagined spectacle (replete with sequins and showgirls). Most importantly, he lets the material breathe and doesn’t try to force the audience into some manufactured state of sensory overload. It is also very refreshing to see both Marshall and Walsh allow the performances to speak for themselves.
Carrying the bulk of the movie on her shoulders is Renee Zellweger, who might not be able to pull off Roxie on a theater stage but is able to sell the character completely on the big screen. Zellweger continues to cement herself as a bona fide starlet, and this may be her best work yet. She really connects to Roxie’s delusional self-love and tragic need for the spotlight.
Most at home in the films theatrical surroundings is Catherine Zeta-Jones. Zeta-Jones gives the very definition of a star turned, oozing venom and sexuality as Velma Kelly.
John C. Reilly injects a powerful dose of pathos into the proceedings as Roxie’s dense but devoted husband Amos. Reilly is so good, in fact, that he nearly steals the film from his higher-billed co-stars.
My advice: Don’t go to see this expecting “Gone With the Wind.” Go expecting to see great performances and flashy production numbers. Most importantly, go to have a good time.