Definitely Worth The Wait: The Triumphant "Dreamgirls"
Written: Jan 06 '07
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: Jennifer Hudson is absolutely stunning.
Cons: The movie's ending is a little too "Hollywood" for me.
The Bottom Line: If you have even a passing interest in music, "Dreamgirls" perfectly encapsulates the crossover dream that many soul musicians harbored in the 60s and 70s. An excellent film.
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| speeddemon531's Full Review: Dreamgirls |
The film adaptation of the Tony Award-winning Broadway play "Dreamgirls" has certainly been a long time coming. For at least two decades, a celluloid version has been promised, with everyone from Whitney Houston to Diana Ross (whose career the play was heavily based on) proclaiming their involvement. A quarter century after it's entry onto the Broadway stage, the movie finally arrives into theaters, and it's well worth the wait.
"Dreamgirls" is set in the black music scene of the Sixties. Curtis Taylor, Jr. (played by Jamie Foxx) is a Detroit-area car salesman with a dream of becoming a music mogul. He scores a major hit act with Jimmy "Thunder" Early (played by Eddie Murphy) and his backup singers, The Dreams. This being the music industry in the Sixties, Taylor is hellbent on making his sound more commercial in order to cross over to the pop charts, since that's where the money is. A lot of folks don't know that up until the early Nineties, most R&B and rap records (particularly those with a more pronounced "urban" sound) had to climb up the R&B charts before being allowed onto the pop charts. He sees tremendous crossover possibilities in Dreams member Deena Jones (Beyonce Knowles), which results in tensions with not only Early (who bristles at having to temper his sound to reach a wider audience), but also with big-boned, big-voiced Dreams leader Effie White (Jennifer Hudson), who sees her vision of stardom cast off to the side. White's struggle to accept a more subordinate role in The Dreams sets a series of problems in motion which eventually lead to her dismissal from the group.
Thomas succeeds in making Jones a huge musical and TV star, although a movie version of "Cleopatra", designed to turn her into a film star, takes years to materialize, and Deena starts to realize that Curtis has her living in an ivory tower. Meanwhile, Effie becomes near destitute for a time, dealing with her pride, a battle with the bottle, and a young child. I won't say how the movie ends, except to say that it's very Hollywood, and slightly unrealistic in my eyes. I realize that it's the movies, but the ending was the only slight blemish on what is otherwise a first-rate film.
As others have stated in their reviews of "Dreamgirls", this is a musical, so while it may be jarring at first to see and hear the characters resolving their issues by singing, eventually you get used to it. Everyone in the cast does a bang-up job. Of course, it helps that the people who were cast in the main roles, like Murphy and Foxx, have musical backgrounds. While Foxx does a slow-burn as the money-minded Taylor, Murphy's performance as Early, who starts out James Brown-esque and ends the film Marvin Gaye-esque (the dropping of his pants at a 10th Anniversary TV performance for his label is eerily similar to Gaye's dropping his pants to end his 1983 concerts), is stunning. Not only has Murphy finally found a place to release remnants of some of his early "SNL" characters like James Brown and Little Richard Simmons, but I can't imagine him not taking into account his close friendships with tragic figures Rick James and Michael Jackson when creating this role.
The three original members of The Dreams are equally impressive. In a relatively small rose, Anika Noni Rose provides much comic relief, especially in the first half of the film. As the driven yet naive Deena Jones, Beyonce is solid. Granted, considering how many parallels this story has to her own history with Destiny's Child, it's kinda hard not to think that she's basically playing herself. However, as Effie White, "American Idol" alum Jennifer Hudson steals the entire damn movie. When, in one scene, Effie says that Deena isn't as good as a singer as her, in my head I thought "well, she's right!". Hudson's voice is capable of blowing people off of mountains, and she plays White with much lip-smackin', neck swivelin' attitude. Instead of withering in the face of veteran actors like Murphy, Foxx and Danny Glover (who plays Early's mentor and first manager), Hudson plays Effie White like her life and career depends on this one role. There aren't many times when I've actually witnessed a star being born during a film, but this is definitely one of them.
This movie's pivotal scene occurs during Effie's dismissal from The Dreams. The number "It's All Over" features vocal contributions from Foxx, all three Dreams, and Effie's soon-to-be replacement, and it's a bitter, round-robin tale outlining the disintegration of a friendship. Hudson ends the song by belting out the movie's centerpiece, "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going". Jennifer Holliday's original version still brings a chill to my spine a quarter-century later. Hudson's rendition is just as special. This is a textbook example of someone completely inhabiting the lyrics of a song. For the ten minutes or so of this particular scene, I forgot I was watching a movie and felt like I was right there in the concert hall with Curtis Taylor and The Dreams. Getting through the scene was like having the wind knocked out of you.
Even though "Dreamgirls" has some comedic moments (and contains far less sex, violence and profanity than most Hollywod films), it's still not a kid's flick, and unless your teenager is a huge Beyonce or Motown fan, they'll probably get bored during the movie. Folks like me who were teenagers in the late Eighties/early Nineties will get a kick out of cameos from two of the bigger black sitcom stars of the era in this movie. Despite the fact that the audience at my viewing of the film consisted of primarily women and gay men, this film is an engrossing two hours of solid acting and singing that will appeal to music fans of any demographic.
Recommended:
Yes
Movie Mood: Date Movie
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: Looked complete to me.
Worst Part of this Film: Ending
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speeddemon531
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I let y'all play with it for a little while. Now Daddy's back.
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