Dreamgirls

by Greg Luther

The movie musical has followed a peculiar path over the years in Hollywood. Once a cornerstone of the industry, they all but disappeared in recent decades. It seemed that modern audiences could not tolerate characters breaking into spontaneous song unless they were animated. In the past few years however, we've seen a resurgence in musicals with Moulin Rouge, Chicago, and now Dreamgirls. Though I have not seen the two former films (Embarrassing, I know. I guess I'm just as musical-phobic as today's average movie-goer), I can say that Dreamgirls serves as an excellent reintroduction to the genre and a great starting point for people who never thought they could sit through a movie with *gasp* people singing.

The film opens with Curtis Taylor Jr. (played by Jamie Foxx) on the hunt to find some last-minute backup singers for James "Thunder" Early. He finds The Dreamettes, and after a little persuading, he's got his girls. As Curtis becomes more involved with Jimmy Early and The Dreamettes, and starts up Rainbow Records, the three parties find greater success, while making more and more concessions to their dreams and happiness. The film is clearly the story of The Supremes and Motown Records, with Taylor sitting in for Berry Gordy, Jimmy Early subbing for James Brown, and of course The Dreamettes/Dreams playing the part of The Supremes. The path may be a little different, but the archetypes and major beats are all there. By changing the names however, we get to see many elements of the Motown movement incorporated, and in a way we see the story of an era rather than the story of a few individuals. It's a welcome change as the musician biopic has been well-tread ground in recent years.

What really surprised me though was how much of a downer the film is. Where Ray was an uplifting story of overcoming hardships through one man's love of music, Dreamgirls is more about the toll the music business took on many performers in the Motown era. In a way it would almost make for a good double feature with something like Hollywoodland. I've never been one to feel sorry for celebrities complaining about how hard they have it, but it's not difficult to see how show business can suck the life out of a person in a film like this. Early on when Jimmy Early's first big hit, "Cadillac Car" is blatantly stolen and sweetened by a white bubblegum act it's almost laughable, except that kind of thing was happening all the time to black musicians. And so we see the beginning of payola and songs being softened up to appeal more to white audiences. It's kind of funny (if your definition of "funny" is tragic) that payola began in order to level the playing field and get independent musicians on the radio, only to be shut down in a huge scandal, while today payola is practiced by the major corporations to ensure that we only hear major label acts, and it's largely ignored by the public and legislators. In addition we see the music itself move further and further from what made it so great in the first place. By the time we hear the introduction of "the mellow sounds of Jimmy Early", it's heartbreaking to see how far he's fallen from the man who said "R & B" stood for "rough and black". He makes an attempt to reclaim his dignity by performing the Dreamgirls equivalent of "Sex Machine" but takes things too far and effectively ends his career.

On the girls' side of things, Curtis changes the front-woman from Effie to Deena, who's prettier but a weaker singer, eventually forcing Effie out altogether. It's a little ironic that Deena is played by Beyonce Knowles. While it might be debatable whether she was the best singer in Destiny's Child, the fact that she's gorgeous and that her parents were the managers obviously played big parts in her being the lead of that group. Even here she sort of steals the limelight, with the press referring to her as the "lead actress" of the film, despite Jennifer Hudson having just as much screen time, and grabbing the focus of the story more often than Deena does.

Much has been made of Eddie Murphy's turn as James "Thunder" Early in the film, and it really is a great performance. It's always nice to see a floundering actor make a big comeback, and hopefully Eddie will capitalize on this current good will. The performance that really surprised me though was Danny Glover. We haven't really heard anything about his appearance in the film and to be honest I had completely forgot he was in it at all. The last thing I remember seeing him in was Saw, which let's just say isn't exactly a career highlight for the guy, so I was happy to see him doing good work again. (While we're on the subject of comebacks, was that Jaleel White at the beginning?) Jamie Foxx also keeps up his post-Collateral streak of good performances, playing Curtis Taylor as sleazy as necessary, yet not completely condemnable. Enough about the actors though, the music is the reason for seeing it. I've always enjoyed Motown music. There was a classiness and showmanship to that era that you don't see as much of in R & B today. Though all the songs in Dreamgirls were written for the stage and screen, they do an effective job of evoking the sound of the era (as well as the disco era late in the film), sounding familiar and fresh at the same time. As I mentioned earlier, the film acts as sort of a primer for people who are a bit apprehensive of musicals. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, but the (for lack of a better term) story-advancing songs are few and far between at the beginning of the film, but account for the majority of the music towards the end, slowly easing the audience into accepting characters breaking into songs during pivotal moments. For me, these songs were a bit of a mixed bag though. Some work, like "Steppin' to the Bad Side", and others like "Family" just seem lame and out of place. I think part of the problem is that many of these songs sound closer to a typical Broadway musical and less like the Motown that is the real heart of the film. For example, "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going", Jennifer Hudson's much publicized, show-stopping number, while a great song in and of itself, plays a little too over the top in the context of the film.

All in all however, these are minor complaints. The film is a very enjoyable, if melancholy depiction of one of the most fascinating periods in both music and American history that should entertain anyone who takes pleasure in flipping to the oldies station from time to time.