Dreamgirls, 2008
May 15th, 2009
Image courtesy of www.impawards.com
I guess this story, based on the hit 1981 Broadway nostalgia musical, is supposed to be a loose re-telling of the story of The Supremes. A Black girl group from Detroit gets a few breaks, makes a few changes, ditches the fat chick, and becomes a worldwide sensation. The girl with the prettier face but the lesser voice gets to sing lead, and the girl with the larger figure but the better voice is relegated to backup and eventually quits the group leaving anger and destruction in her wake.
My favorite part of Dreamgirls was seeing Eddie Murphy play a complex character straight, and therefore deeply. I absolutely love it when artists break out of the mold that has been cast for them and show that they have chops that nobody really suspected.
Murphy isn’t the only good thing about this movie, though. That’s the weird thing about it; though there are so many good performances, so many good musical numbers, I never really felt like it came together. And, well…the Motown sound isn’t really my thing, so that kind of detracts from the experience, too.
Let’s start with the girls of Dreams. The most talked-about cast member is Jennifer Hudson, fresh from her American Idol second place finish, as Effie White, the big girl with the big voice. She won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for this role—not a bad start to a career—and I think she deserved it as much as anyone. One touch she brings to this role is the way she looks electrified when she gets to sing lead, but bored to tears when she has to sing backup. She brings the house down in the first-act show stopper, “And I Told You I Am Not Leaving,” which showcases her vocal talent, but goes on about four minutes too long.
Beyonce Knowles does an impressive job as Deena Jones, the group’s new lead. She takes her from the timid follower content to stay in the background, to an assertive leader willing to become to focus of attention for the sake of the group. She is a subtler and more refined actress and singer than Hudson, though without Hudson’s power and range. Hudson may have deserved the Oscar nom for this film, but Beyonce’s performance certainly equaled hers.
The male cast includes Jamie Foxx as Curtis T. Jones, the manager whose success is irrevocably bound up with that of the Dreams. Keith Patrick gives a solid performance as Effie’s brother, the group’s songwriter, CC. These men are great actors, and decent singers…but I can’t decide whether this film should have great male singers to match the women, or if having decent male singers simply emphasizes how exceptional the women are. Anyway, we grow from loving to hating Foxx’s character, and though we see how rotten a human he has become, we also understand that as far as the Dreams are concerned, he usually makes the right choices. It’s too bad they’re the choices that make everyone miserable.
As I said, I don’t care much for the Motown sound or 60’s music in general, but there were a couple of show tune sounding ones that I really did enjoy, both of them vocalized by Eddie Murphy. These were “Cadillac Car,” (and the white-boy rendition of this is hysterical) and “Walking on the Bad Side.” They had a different sound, and an intensity that propelled the plot forward as well as showcasing the stars’ musical talents. I wouldn’t buy the soundtrack, but I’d download those two songs.
I know many people loved this movie, and I can see why, but it didn’t really do it for me. Pieces of it were likable, some songs were enjoyable and individual performances were good, but director/screenwriter Bill Condon just didn’t seem to hold it all together very well. It should have been about 45 minutes shorter, though if you like the music, that probably won’t be a problem for you. I guess that says it all…in the end, it’s all about the music. Whether that’s a good thing is up to you.