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Dreamgirls:
DreamWorks Delivers Dishy Detroit Divas
 By Mark R. Leffler Twenty-five years after it opened at the Imperial Theatre on Broadway, almost to the day, Dreamgirls is slowly but steadily working it's way up the charts like a Motown single by Smokey or well, The Supremes.
True story: Diana Ross was on
The Late Show with David Letterman recently. When the gap-toothed
host asked the First Lady of Motown, the model for the musical's
Deena Jones, if she had seen the movie. Ross, who has made it well
known that she has never seen the theatre version, smiled. "No, but
I'm planning to see it with my lawyers," she replied in a voice
dripping with venom.
It hasn't been an easy couple of
decades for the big budget Hollywood musical. Before and after World
War Two the major studios, particularly MGM, churned out musicals and
musical comedies like Ramblers coming off an assembly line.
But since the turbulence and turmoil of
The Sixties made musicals like "Oklahoma" or "The Sound of
Music" seem irrelevant, it's rare to see a musical make it to the
screen. When they do, they often misfire, like Madonna as
Evita Peron.
So it's refreshing and exciting to see
a tremendously talented cast and director take on this long
anticipated project and hit it out of the park on almost every level.
The film begins at the legendary
Apollo Theatre Amateur Night competition where a trio of female
singers is recruited to become back-up singers for James "Thunder"
Early, played with smoothness and debonair by Eddie Murphy.
While Murphy used to do a wicked James Brown in his stand-up,
the character is actually a blend of J.B, Marvin Gaye
and Jackie Wilson.
While Dreamgirls is obviously a
loosely fictionalized version of the story of the triumphs and
tragedies of Diana Ross and The Supremes, this is a musical and not a
documentary.
The tabloid backstage history of Motown legends like Ross, founder and hitmaker Barry Gordy and others are simply the underlying structure that the film is built upon. Dreamgirls is very traditional in structure. Anyone familiar with musicals as a genre with recognize many elements, perhaps the most popular being the show stopping first act finale. Live theatrical performances of Dreamgirls are performed in two acts with an intermission. A savvy producer wants a big number to keep audiences in their seats and have them buzzing for more during intermission.
There are first act closers and there
are first act closers. And then there is "And I Am Telling You I'm
Not Going".
(Spoiler alert: Do not read
on if you don't know the story and don't want plotlines revealed)
Effie, played by American
Idol contestant Jennifer Hudson, is the large and in charge
leader of "The Dreams", as the group is now known. Effie is in
love with the Gordy-inspired Curtis Taylor, Junior (Jamie
Foxx), who is driven to take his group to the top, replacing Effie
both onstage and in the bedroom, with the thinner more glamorous Deena
(Beyonce Knowles).
"And I Am Telling YouŠ" is a
star-maker of a number which brought the house down nightly when
performed on Broadway by original Effie Nell Carter. In the
movie, Hudson nails it. Watching her growl out her pain and
determination is to watch a star being born. Take the kids' tuition
money out of the bank and take any odds that Ms. Hudson will be going
home with Oscar in a few months.
The second half of the movie follows
Effie's struggles as a single mother while Curtis produces hit after
hit for The Dreams and other groups like The Campbell
Connection (a Jackson Five-style group). The story, while
interesting, is a bit melodramatic, like so many musicals, but it is
the music and the performances that make the movie soar and send
chills up your spike.
Some reviewers have commented that
Hudson upstages Beyonce. That is unfair. The musical and the movie are
designed to showcase Effie and her songs. We are meant to root for her
to not only survive but to triumph.
An unexpected thrill was Eddie Murphy's
performance as "Thunder" Early. Whether kneeling at the feet of a
swooning fan, or sipping from a flask on the back of the tour bus as
he chats up a back-up singer, Murphy dazzles. When his character numbs
himself with junk after selling out to sing romantic ballads, it
breaks your hearts knowing what is inevitable. Some viewers might feel
the emotion in such scene is a bit contrived, cliché and over the top.
But musical theatre usually treats life in bold sweeps and doesn't
deal much in subtlety. That's not a slam, just the nature of the
medium. Murphy is truly touching in his performance both musically and
dramatically and hopefully an Academy Award will follow his Golden
Globe for Best Supporting Actor also.
The story delivers a happy ending of
sorts, although montages make reference to the turmoil in the country
and the world (civil rights marches, Vietnam, assassinations, campus
and inner city riots) that is reflected in the turmoil in the
character's lives.
Moviegoers who lived through the
Sixties and Seventies will get a kick out of the meticulously designed
costumes from those eras. The Afros and disco threads will have you
thinking you're watch reruns of "Soul Train" with Don
Cornelius and ads for Afro-Sheen.
Directed and adapted for the screen by
Bill Condon, who wrote the script for the adaptation of
"Chicago", Dreamgirls is a weapon of mass entertainment. It
is that rare achievement: an artistic and commercial success that is
also fitting entertainment for the whole family from kindergartners to
grandparents.
Grade: A+ |
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