Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

When I heard of Captaind’s Good Movies Write Off I knew that I wanted to submit Dream Girls as one of the best movies I have seen as of late. However, I knew the writing a review about this movie would be a bit of a chore as I do not consider Dream Girls to be just a movie; it was more like an event. Not to mention this movie has a lot going on with it and a lot of characters to cover.

Dream Girls

The easy plot summary would be to say that this is a movie about 3 girls who dreamed of fame and fortune as singers in a day and age when it was rough for African Americans to get ahead. But the movie is so much more than that, and there are other characters involved in this film, whose roles were just as important.

But let us start with the girls. Effie (Jennifer Hudson), Deena (Beyonce), and Lorrell (Anika Noni Rose) are a group of singers who are struggling to get noticed. While performing at a local showcase they meet up with Curtis Taylor (Jamie Fox) and Marti Madison (Danny Glover), who are looking for back up singers to back up an already fairly famous singer by the name of Jimmy or James “Thunder” Early (Eddie Murphy). It seems that Jimmy who is a married man can not seem to keep his hands off of his back up singers, and his latest indiscretion has left him with out any back up singers, and he needs some girls to back him up as soon as possible. After some convincing and a little flattering from Curtis towards Effie the girls agree to do it. Effie is kind of the alpha female and is the strongest singer in the group. Jimmy’s show becomes quite successful with the girls backing him up and somewhere along the way the girls end up being called The Dreams.

In the midst of all of this Effie develops a relationship with Curtis, and Lorrell develops a relationship with Jimmy, and Effie’s brother (played by C.C. White) becomes a song writer for the group. Curtis has now replaced Marti as both Jimmy’s manager and the manger of the dreams, and though he is involved with Effie he can not help but be intrigued by the beautiful Deena. Eventually Curtis decides that if he puts Deena in as the front singer of the dreams that the girls can break out on their own as a group. Effie is not happy about this but eventually agrees. Things become complicated after this, and the real drama of the movie starts to unfold.

We learn about an extremely talented but head strong Effie who struggles to reprise her singing career, after she loses her spot with the dream. We learn how The Dreams who have replaced Effie climb to the top of the charts and become famous. We also learn about Jimmy’s struggle with drugs, fame, and infidelity, we learn about Lorrell’s obsession with Jimmy, and how she gives up her young life staying involved with a married man. There is family heartbreak between Effie and her brother, and we see how Deena struggles with her own demons as she becomes kind of a puppet to Curtis who not only eventually becomes her husband but becomes a power hungry, ruthless, and un-ethical business man. So as you can very well see there are a lot of different sub-plots going on in this movie, and I have not even begun to talk about the music yet.

The Music

The music which of course mostly created by the original screen play is excellent. Mostly R & B, and 60’s style Motown music, and the cast does an amazing job of singing the already established songs. Jennifer Hudson does an amazing job singing the songs of the Effie White character which was originally performed by Jennifer Holiday, although no one could possibly ever completely capture the emotion of Jennifer Holiday, Jennifer Hudson does a more that acceptable job, especially with the featured song of the movie, And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.” Eddie Murphy also does a spectacular job with not only the acting but the singing as well, he actually shows off some flexible vocals in this movie, and my favorite song of all actually came from Beyonce and the song is called listen, Beyonce shows so much emotion and strength when she sings this song that you can’t help but get sucked in by this part of the movie. After hearing all the songs in the movie and especially “Listen” I knew that I just had to have the sound track, and I almost never buy music.

Final Thoughts

Watching Dream Girls was like watching a movie and a Broadway musical all at once.
There is so much going on both with the movie’s plot, and with all the musical performances spread throughout the movie.

The director Bill Condon does an excellent job of moving the movie along at a steady pace, and combining the music into the plot. Despite its long length the movie never drags, and I can honestly say that I stayed thoroughly entertained and enthralled throughout the entire movie.

Of course if you don’t really like musicals and there are people who don’t you may not fully appreciate the movie. We had some friends over one day and we had the Soundtrack playing in the background, and they actually insulted the music, of course they are big hard rock fans, so Motown, and Broadway is not really their style. But I was still pretty shocked that they actually called the music terrible, for one they weren’t really listening to it, and two in my opinion the music is amazing.

So if you like musicals and you like drama and if you think you can stand taking up a few hours to sit down and watch a movie, I highly recommend Dream Girls. As I said it was really more of an event than a movie. Make sure you have the time to watch it in its entirety and just sit back relax and enjoy. If you are anything like me you will find your self humming, and singing songs from the movie for many days after you watch it.

Note

This is my entry in Captaind’s Good Movie Write off and my daily contribution to Kamel622’s Epiwrimo write off.

Dave’s (Captaind) Write off: http://www.epinions.com/content_5110997124
Kathy’s (Kamel622) Write off: http://www.epinions.com/content_5122072708

Check them out, and don’t forget to join in to the 5th Annual Resurrecting the Oldies Book write off sponsored by yours truly:

http://www.epinions.com/content_5113290884


Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older