| SUPREME IRONIES : Bill Condon's 'Dreamgirls' [5/10] |
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| Friday, 02 March 2007 | |
 It's not quite accurate to say Jennifer Hudson's take-no-prisoners Oscar-winning performance is the only thing about Dreamgirls that makes it worth watching - but it's a pretty close call. Whenever Hudson is on screen, this clunky attempt at an old-fashioned musical - unfortunately much closer to Chicago than Moulin Rouge! - seems alive, vibrant and passionate. When she's absent - as she is for significant stretches in the latter stages - it's like the film has gone from colour to black-and-white (or from sound to silent) and its many flaws become gratingly apparent. But does Hudson deserve her Academy Award? Yes and no: Hudson's character Effie is as much of a lead as a supporting role, and it's (to say the least) ironic that a film whose story is all about talent being unfairly pushed out of the spotlight should itself display similar behaviour. Hudson wouldn't have beaten Helen Mirren as Best Actress, of course, so the "category fraud" of campaigning her in what's sometimes seen as a 'lesser' competition is understandable. What isn't really on is for Hudson to be fifth-billed in the closing credits, behind Jamie Foxx, Beyonce Knowles, Eddie Murphy and Danny Glover. The only other particularly remarkable feature of the enterprise - which chronicles the career of a Supremes-like vocal trio - is a delicious, out-of-the-blue cameo from John Lithgow as a slimy Hollywood director: sporting a weird, stringy grey wig, the veteran actor really does seem to have briefly wandered in from the set of another film altogether. According to some sources, at one stage Lithgow actually had rather more to do - there are those who reckon he actually got to sing in Condon's original cut (not as surprising as it may sound: he's already released three children's albums). Regrettably for all concerned, however, this scene - which sounds like it might have been a showstopper - ended up on the cutting-room floor, if it was ever actually shot at all. The rumoured excision of the fabled "Lithgow number" (which may yet surface on a future DVD) would fit in all too well with Condon's safe-hands approach: just as the eponymous 'Dreamgirls' adapt their sound to attract 'crossover' audiences, Dreamgirls presents a ludicrously sanitised, anodyne version of the Detroit-centric music business in the 1960s and 1970s. All of the industry's sharp practices and immoral demerits are handily personified in the band's ruthless manager Curtis (Jamie Foxx) - such a two-dimensional villain that Motown boss Berry Gordy, on whom the character is all too obviously based, is surely entitled to feel aggrieved. The demonisation of Curtis/Gordy is particularly noticeable when juxtaposed with the implausibly noble figure of Deena (Beyonce Knowle), who occupies what's clearly intended to be the 'Diana Ross' role here. When the film was first released in the USA, 'Miss Ross' made it clear that she would be viewing Dreamgirls - based on a popular Broadway musical from the early eighties - in the company of her lawyer. She needn't have worried about possible defamation: Deena is presented as a wide-eyed innocent in no way responsible for the way big-voiced band-mate Effie (Hudson) is cruelly relegated to backing-vocals as part of Curtis's strategy for chart domination (strategies of which Knowles herself - during her tumultuous Destiny's Child era - had, shall we say, first-hand knowledge.) Indeed, if anything Ross might perhaps feel slightly aggrieved at the way Deena is such a saintly boob - one whose radio-friendly voice has, in Curtis's stinging words, "no personality ... no depth." Though cruel, Curtis's assessment is accurate - and it also applies to the film as a whole, as Condon is disappointingly content to rely on well-worn cliches both as a director and as a screenwriter. His contributions feature none of the from-the-heart intensity which blazes forth from Effie/Hudson: his visual sense is underwhelming at best, and his script lurches along at a pace that's often crazily abrupt (the band's rise to fame occurs during a dizzyingly choppy 30-second montage.) Many of the Dreamgirls' hits are pallid copies of the real thing (sample lyric: "You are so horribly Satanic / The way you lead me around / I feel just like the Titanic"), while alert viewers will notice that the grand reunion/farewell performance that climaxes the film comprises exactly two songs. The audience at the show doesn't seem to mind at being so short-changed: notwithstanding Hudson's contribution (and Lithgow's!) , anyone who forks out to see Dreamgirls either in a cinema or on DVD may not be quite so easy to please. Neil Young 1st March, 2007 DREAMGIRLS : [5/10] : USA 2006 : Bill CONDON : 130 mins (BBFC timing) seen at Empire cinema, Gate complex, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (UK), 29th January 2007 - press show |
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