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Dreamgirls

Sun., January 14, 2007

A still from 'Dreamgirls.'

I’d rather have seen Spike Lee’s biopic on James Brown, but because that directorial decision was made as the Godfather’s body cooled in its solid-gold coffin and production won’t start at least until next year, I settled for Dreamgirls, a fictional biopic of the Supremes.

Like that famously popular girl-group, the Dreamgirls change in sound and personnel as they turn successful. The original lead is Effie White, the strong girl with the belt-out voice, played by popular American Idol karaoke participant Jennifer Hudson. At my screening, her centerpiece songs were lavished with heart-swollen applause by the audience. It’s deserved, I think. Because I’m writing this later than the datestamp implies, I can tell you that Hudson has since won a Golden Globe for her role, but even had I not known that, I’d have predicted an Oscar nomination.

Effie’s got soul but Curtis Taylor, Jr. (Jamie Foxx), the group’s wolf-eyed manager, wants the top-40. He entangles himself in backhanded business tactics of payola and mafia funding to build his empire. Most egregiously, he fires the superior Effie and promotes Deena (Beyoncé Knowles) and her mass-appeal voice to lead, echoing what happened in reality with Diana Ross.

It’s a strange meta-commentary on the continued homogenization of pop music that the bland Beyoncé, a real life singing sensation, is promoted as a radio-friendly unit shifter. And although the audience knows this from the get-go, Deena is slow. With spite, Cutis reveals to her late in the film that he’s been using her for her voice, which he admits isn’t that great anyway; she’s the only one, onscreen and off, who’s shocked.

The funniest run in the movie also has to do with the commercial realities of pop music, showing how white singers appropriated songs by black musicians, cranked out watery blue-eyed versions and propelled themselves up the pop charts. Curtis makes the point that “Hound Dog” wasn’t originally by Elvis, it was by “Big Mama” Thorton, a large, growling black woman, and as such, considered a “race record” with limited appeal. The cracker with the swivel hips and curled lip turned that around and set the standard for rock musicians to pilfer the riches of their R&B forbearers.

As James "Thunder" Early, a James Brown-Little Richard hybrid for whom the Dreamgirls sing backup until they eclipse him in fame, Eddie Murphy injects the film with a randy comic zip that makes his downfall even sadder. (Like Hudson, Murphy also won a Golden Globe and there may be an Oscar waiting for him as well.) He begins as a king of chitlin circuit but as the market shifts, finds himself marginalized. He turns to drugs and is relegated to croon showtunes on the Vegas circuit. With ants in his pants one fateful night, he bursts of out his new straight-laced, white-friendly persona into a shouting soulful stomp, gets down and gets funky with his horn section, then drops trou on live TV. He shocks the audience and he’s fired on the spot for breaking character.

Featuring as many songs as Dreamgirls does, most are forgettable and produced (ironically?) in the bland style the film protests. And as much as I tried to suppress my prejudices, the very idea of musicals still bothers me—that people will exchange dialogue then burst into perfectly synchonized song without skipping a beat. Dreamgirls also puts some couplets of dialogue to song (usually Effie’s), a more unnerving tactic than head-on musical numbers.

Finally, I must say that if the costume and/or makeup designs for this flick don’t get Oscar nominations, there is no justice in this world. Both chart a perfect course from the cake-frosting colors and frills of the 50s, to the slim, mod styling of 60s to the flared and sequined ’70s. The getups depict the advance of years better than any nudge of prop or dialogue could. The parade of couture progresses seamlessly, save those tight red vinyl wrap-dresses from the ’60s that make the plump Hudson resemble a really comfy La-Z-Boy.

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