Jan. 22, 2007 — "The sigh you will hear across the country in the next new weeks," says David Denby in the New Yorker, "is the sound of a gratified audience: a great movie musical has been made at last."
"Dreamgirls" has been called everything from a "star-studded, finger-popping, whiz-bang adaptation of the Broadway hit," to the "rare movie musical with real rapture in it."
It's big, no question there. And it just may be bigger than the stage rendition of 25 years ago, something movie musicals don't usually achieve. More often than not, when Broadway stars are replaced with movie stars, the production suffers — the Tinseltown actors somehow just don't have the magic. Witness "Chicago," which won an Oscar but got widely panned by the critics as "overwrought," among other things.
Well, Bill Condon who directed "Chicago," wrote and directed "Dreamgirls." Denby was critical of Condon's dance work in "Chicago." He says, "'Dreamgirls'" is a singing, not a dancing musical … his basic urge is to merge and join things, not separate them. He lets events flow into the next moment, a declaration of love, an argument, in an exhilarating organic structure with liquid joints." Wow!
The movie is a loosely disguised account of the rise of Berry Gordy and the Supremes in the 1960s. The three Chicago girls — Effie (Jennifer Hudson), Deena (Beyonce Knowles) and Lorrell (Anika Noni Rose) — are a trio who call themselves the Dreamettes. The movie is seen against a backdrop of the Detroit riots and the Civil Rights movement.
They travel to New York to compete in a contest at the legendary Apollo Theater. They don't win, but they do get picked up by a ruthless talent agent, Curtis Taylor Jr. (Jamie Foxx), who sets their career — and their emotions — on a roller-coaster ride to the big time.
Curtis homogenizes the girls' sound, dresses them in elaborate wigs, satin dresses, elbow-length gloves and leads them "out of the wilderness of R&B and into the promised land of the pop charts," Denby says.
But one of the girls doesn't fit: the beautiful but over-sized Effie, the lead singer with a big voice and a bigger mouth. When Curtis replaces her as the lead with the demure Deena (the gorgeous Beyonce), Denby says, "She explodes, and the movie reaches a sustained peak with two long, inter-locked numbers: 'It's All Over,' and the show-stopper, 'And I am Telling You I'm Not Going.'"
Hudson is the young singer who got voted off "American Idol" for the same reasons that Effie gets tossed out of the group here. Denby says, "As a piece of singing, this performance is intentionally over the top — exciting, but almost scary in its intensity."
Effie's anger is fueled not only by jealousy about being replaced by Deena; she is also carrying Curtis' baby.
But all counties are not heard from yet. Richard Roeper in the Chicago Sun-Times says, "it's a star-studded, finger-popping, whiz-bang adaptation of the Broadway hit. It's sure to have some audiences standing and cheering … it's bound to garner multiple Oscar nominations."
But, Roeper says, not his. "They're selling this as the shoo-in for best picture, and I am telling you I'm not buying," he says. "As much as I enjoyed the sheer brassiness and emotion and bigness of this production, as much as I appreciated the performances from the terrifically talented cast — as much as I liked 'Dreamgirls' — I didn't love it. Maybe it was just a little too slick and over the top for its own good."
However, Roeper, himself, is "over the top" about Murphy's acting. "Murphy deserves a best supporting actor nomination for his searing performance," he says. "Whether he's crooning a ballad or getting nasty with a sexually charged number on stage, rapid-fire quipping with the ladies and his bandmates or sinking into a drug-fueled funk, Murphy is riveting, not once winking at the camera or falling back on time-honored 'Eddie-isms.' It's maybe the best work he's ever done."
So, that's what makes horse races, isn't it? By all counts, "Dreamgirls" looks like a good bet, and a blessed, though momentary, departure from the real world. Isn't that why we go to movies?
It's rated PG-13 for language, some sexuality and drug content, and runs an hour and a half. It starts Thursday at Market Square East.
