by lyricalman

Created on: February 07, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

I HAVE A DREAM, A SONG TO SING!
DREAMGIRLS
(12A, general release)
*

After all the promise and hype surrounding this much heralded musical drama from Bill Condon (director of Kinsey and Gods & Monsters) with its 8 Oscar nominations & 25 awards etc etc, I was hoping for something a little bit more memorable than I got! This is not to be deliberately cynical or skeptical about such a lavish & colorful production as I am a huge fan of all forms of music. It's just that this dreamlike adaptation of the 1981 Tony-winning Broadway musical Dreamgirls has an awful lot of energy with very little soul.

Loosely based on famous girl group "The Supremes" headed by Diana Ross and chronicling the transition from soulful 60's to the disco infused 70's period Dreamgirls introduces to us a group of black female soul singers called the Dreamettes who (excuse the pun) dream of becoming pop stars. The trio of young women which comprise of Deena Jones (a wooden Beyonce Knowles); Effie White (American Idol reject: Jennifer Hudson) & Lorrell Robinson (Anika Noni Rose) get their break when an ambitious car dealer/music promoter Curtis Taylor (played by a very tepid Jamie Foxx) picks them to be backup singers for the legendary Jimmy "Thunder" Early (a captivating Eddie Murphy). When they get the opportunity to break out as a group in their own right Taylor & Effie's brother C.C. (Keith Robinson) decide upon casting the "beautiful" Deena as lead singer in an effort to make their unique sound accessible to the "white" dominated mainstream pop charts. This clearly upsets the amply proportioned & vocally superior Effie who had strong aspirations for her own solo career.
What follows is an interesting if somewhat hackneyed tale of the greed; romance; betrayal & manipulation that took place behind the scenes and still permeates the music industry of today! However whatever sort of meaningful impact this could have had was negated by some painfully excruciating & laughable scenes of sing along dialogue & dynamic though irrelevant songs that added nothing to the overall story. I understand that it's very hard to bring musicals to life on a movie screen but surely Bill Condon could have had less musicality & more humanity!
There was nobody you could root for with the possible exception of Jennifer Hudson's Effie & Eddie Murphy's Jimmy. In her feature film debut Hudson manages to steal most of the scenes she was in (probably not too hard in this case) with her heartfelt; impassioned performance & belting voice. However there were times when even her singing seemed exaggerated and over the top! Murphy adds a wonderful charisma & vulnerability to his James Brown like personality in what is one of his most mature roles to date! Beyonce Knowles (Pink Panther and Fighting Temptations) as hard as she tries can't act and comes across as superficial & contrived. Don't get me wrong she looks good but looks alone simply aren't enough if she wants to be taken seriously as an actress, whilst Jamie Foxx plays a cold & calculating character in an uncharacteristically lethargic & lukewarm manner. He seemed very uncomfortable in some of the musical numbers.
Alas Dreamgirls is unfortunately like so many dreams that we experience: fantastic & wonderful while we're in the midst of them but ultimately unreal & illusory, then you wake up and can't remember what it was all about!

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