Dreamgirls

When judged solely as a musical experience, Dreamgirls is a highly energetic show stopper in every sense of the word. Problem is, massive amounts of pre-release hype has lifted this film up to a higher playing field - that of the prestigious "Award Movie". It is here that the film stands on slightly less solid ground. In adapting the 1981 Tony Award-winning Broadway musical to the big screen, writer-director Bill Condon (who is no stranger to bringing musicals to the screen, having penned the screenplay to 2002's Chicago movie), gives his film energy to spare thanks to some fantastically staged and performed musical numbers and a bright cast. If Dreamgirls were to make us care as much about its plot and its characters as it does its music, the movie would have been a complete grand slam.

The film chronicles the music career of three young black women in the early 60s who are struggling to make it as a musical act. The girls call themselves the Dreamettes, and include feisty and soulful lead singer Effie White (Jennifer Hudson), and the lovely back up singers Deena Jones (Beyonce Knowles) and Lorell Robinson (Anika Noni Rose). After a strong performance at an amateur night talent search, they are approached by rising young music manager Curtis Taylor Jr (Jamie Foxx), who hires them on the spot as back up singers for established music artist, James "Thunder" Early (Eddie Murphy). The popularity of the girls eventually grows so enormous over the years, that Curtis is able to get them their own act without James, retitled The Dreams. Unfortunately, heavy-set lead singer Effie is pushed into the background, and finds the much more slender and more image friendly Deena promoted to lead singer, as Curtis feels the group will sell more albums with her in the front instead. The remainder of the film follows the turbulent rise of The Dreams through various hardships, clashes of egos and shady dealings behind the scenes, and the numerous trials of former lead singer Effie as she tries to create a career for herself after breaking away from the group, not wanting to be merely a background player.

For sheer musical entertainment, Dreamgirls delivers in spades as it accurately recreates the changing eras of music and times from the early 60s up to roughly the mid 70s. It does this through a vast amount of musical numbers that not only capture the style of music of the time period, but are genuinely tuneful and fun to listen to. The film follows your basic "Behind the Music" formula, and follows the career of The Dreams from their humble beginnings, up to their chart-topping peaks. The film works well as a time capsule chronicling the different music styles of the era, as we not only see the sound of The Dreams change from soulful R and B all the way to Disco, but we also see various other music groups as well that are modeled after actual bands such as The Jackson 5. The film's cast is more than willing and able to belt out the film's many show stopping numbers with appropriate gusto and passion that actually had many audience members at my screening applauding at the end of certain musical numbers, as if it were an actual stage production. The key musical stand out is Jennifer Hudson in her scene-stealing performance as Effie White. Not only does she have a commanding screen presence, but every time she sings, you literally cannot take your eyes off of her. Previously best known for her stint on the American Idol TV show, this movie is an absolutely perfect vehicle to display her amazing singing talents, that not only hold the audience in total attention, but truly convey the feelings of her character and the scene. A big surprise is how successful Eddie Murphy's songs come across. While it's true he had a short-lived recording career back in the 80s, here he perfectly nails the tone and pitch for each and every song he sings, as well as the choreography and stage persona of the womanizing and self-destructive James "Thunder" Early. Perhaps most surprising, however, is that the most established singer in the main cast, Beyonce Knowles, comes across as the least impressive. It's not that she's bad, and she certainly handles all of her numbers well. It's just compared to Jennifer Hudson, she never truly stands out.

When Dreamgirls is focusing on the music, the movie is a tremendous entertainment. Unfortunately, that pesky underdeveloped plot has to keep on sneaking in, making us wait for the next number to come along and pick things up again. This gives the film a highly uneven tone that keeps on switching back and forth from extreme highs to mediocre lows. There's nothing exactly wrong with the story in general, it's just nothing we haven't seen before hundreds of times before, and the movie doesn't spend enough time fleshing either it or the characters out. A majority of the film's running time is made up of the musical sequences, with only the bare minimum amount of dialogue in between to help move the story forward. This obviously causes the characters to suffer, as we never truly get a chance to know them outside of their stage personas. All throughout, the film is content to tell us as little as possible so that we can understand what's supposed to be happening, but not much more than that. Potentially interesting dramatic moments, such as Effie's gradual fall and rise into a solo career are simply glossed over, while a subplot concerning the secret relationship between James and Dreams member Lorell is never given enough time for the eventual outcome to hit as strong or as hard as I think the filmmakers intended. While these problems never hurt the overall entertainment value of the film, they do make you feel like you're not getting the entire story. When you compare the film's narrative to everything else, the difference is staggering. Everything is top of the line, you wonder why the screenplay didn't get the same amount of attention. It would seem that Bill Condon decided to stay too close to the stage production's original book, not venturing enough into the storyline to make us care about the characters as much as we should.

Perhaps the reason why the weak storytelling bothered me is because the characters seemed interesting and likeable, and the performances are lively and energetic. Once again, Jennifer Hudson takes center stage, since her character gets the most amount of screen time and development outside of the songs, giving her ample opportunity to give a memorable performance. As the other two members of The Dreams, Beyonce Knowles and Anika Noni Rose are serviceable, but not much more than that, since they're not given much to do in terms of dialogue or characters. Jamie Foxx gets to play against type as the conniving and scheming manager, but aside from a couple choice scenes, he too is surprisingly not developed deep enough for us to truly hate him as much as the movie seems to want us to. Aside from Jennifer Hudson, Eddie Murphy gives the only other stand out performance, and that's because he finally gets to flex his acting talent after years of being stuck in mediocre family films and disappointing raunch comedies. Here, he gets to play an interesting and dramatic character, who is only short changed by the limited amount of screen time he gets in the movie itself, and how his character seems to keep on popping in and out of the movie at will. The film's ensemble cast also includes a good performance from Danny Glover in the small but important role as James' first manager, who winds up helping Effie getting back on her feet. Besides the strong performances, the film's visual style stands out in how it recreates the fashions and look of each individual era that the story covers.

If I seem to be stressing the negatives, I don't want to give the impression that Dreamgirls is a bad movie. It's highly entertaining on the surface level, there's just not a whole lot to grab our attention underneath. This is one of those films that pretty much requires that you see it in a theater with a crowd of people in order to fully enjoy it. Quite frankly, I can't see this movie working the same way at home on DVD. That being said, Dreamgirls is a fine little piece of imperfect entertainment, as long as you're not looking for substance. It may not stay with you after you've walked out of the theater, but you'll definitely remember having fun while it lasted.

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