America now Idolises Jennifer Hudson, this was really Effie's Story!

Rating: 7/10 (6 February 2007)

Note to IMDb: I think the scoring system needs a slight tweaking, there should be .5 as well as the numerical value - instead of an absolute final value since while the movie was about 7.5, I would rate Jennifer Hudson's performance as 9.5! To my view, this show ranged from 1959 to about 1983 or '84, let's say 25 years from late 50's to early 80's, while the show was based on the Supremes, there were other references that were spot on but I noticed some other anachronisms - Beyonce's pictures in the mansion showed her sporting a hairstyle where the hair is twisted into tubes and that was not 70's, certainly not for black people then either! Another out-of-time slot was the dance sequence for "Bad Man" (the first payola scene, not sure if I have the right name for that song) those moves were clearly 90's and now, there was another discrepancy also with Beyonce's hair as a flowing perm in the mid 70's, anyhow, now for the picture itself...
Eddie Murphy as Jimmy "Thunder" Early was a surprisingly good choice, his meteoric rise as a Little Richard wanna-be, changed into a balladeer even though his heart was not in it, and that led to his thwarted efforts as a "conscious" singer objecting to Vietnam which led to his pathetic demise - yet it was he who gave the Dreamgirls their break! Beyonce as Deena Jones (read a close alternative for Diana Ross), was good as an alternative version of Tina Turner who in this case was able to walk out without being beaten or losing money, her pyromania in "Listen" was very good but not earth-shattering...
Jamie Foxx as Curtis Taylor Jr the slick nobody who wrests away the managing of the group from Danny Glover's Marty Madison, bringing them to a white audience and defeating white bands by using their own methods against them was very harsh and real. His success led to overconfidence and an ultra-Svengali degree of control for the whole band.
But it was Jennifer Hudson as the feisty, tumultuous and passionate Effie White who stole the show by far! I am so glad that American Idol's Simon Cowell is eating his words, when Effie/Jennifer belted Jennifer Holiday's classic from the original "You're Gonna Love Me" I knew she had to get an Oscar, I went through three Kleenexes as she mourned her unrequited love for Curtis/Foxx! All through her pain and sorrow she kept her pregnancy quiet, named her daughter Miracle and drank her fortune away, until she appealed to Madison/Glover to find her another break, then the reluctant champion stepped forth and did "One Night Only" which lyrically reminded me of Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me" and then the now-evil Curtis/Foxx stepped in to do another payola to wrest her comeback until Beyonce/Deena blew the whistle! The scene with the new trio minus Effie that was set in the gay bar was obviously a nod to Diana Ross' homosexual following, especially when she had the hits "Muscles", "I'm Coming Out" and "Inside Out" that were large hits in the gay community.
The movie in and of itself is another rags-to-riches tale, but the real story and performance was Jennifer Hudson! http://bajanreporter.blogspot.com/