Reflections

Rating: 7/10 (21 February 2007)

This is film version of the Broadway musical that ran for almost four years beginning in 1981 and won six Tony Awards in 1982. It's loosely based on Motown founder Berry Gordy and The Supremes but not quite. More like some parallel universe. Curtis Taylor Jr. (Jamie Foxx) is the Berry Gordy-type character who discovers three talented young singers out of Detroit's housing projects called The Dreamettes, Deena Jones (Beyoncé Knowles), Effie White (Jennifer Hudson) and Lorrell Robinson (Anika Noni Rose) and turns them into pop friendly glamor queens The Dreams as his ticket to his own dream to build a record empire and take race record black artists into mainstream and cross-over from R&B to the top 40 pop charts. It's a good ensemble cast with Jennifer Hudson in her Academy Award nominated film debut. James Thunder Early (Eddie Murphy) is a composite character that is part Motown artists Marvin Gaye and David Ruffin with a little James Brown and Otis Redding thrown in. Marty Madison (Danny Glover) is Early's manager. C.C. White (Keith Robinson) is Effie's songwriting brother and is a composite of Holland-Dozier-Holland with a little bit of Smokey Robinson thrown in. Michelle Morris (Sharon Leal) is a Rainbow Records staffer that becomes on of The Dreams. Eddie Murphy is also Academy Award nominated as Best Supporting Actor but it's not much of a stretch and despite him being a soul singer here you just can't seem to get past Eddie Murphy being Eddie Murphy. Jamie Foxx just goes through the motions in his role as the megalomaniac record producer and it makes you wonder why he even accepted the role. Danny Glover is always good but like his character he doesn't have a whole lot to do here. Beyoncé Knowles is one dimensional except for when she's singing. Anika Noni Rose is good and gives a lively performance. Keith Robinson is robotic. Jennifer Hudson is the odds-on favorite to win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress but I wouldn't count on it. Her singing voice is so over-the-top and overbearing that after one solo performance it grows pretty tiresome. Bill Condon adapted Tom Eyen's play for the film and also directs. It's well directed as a musical to film but it's a weak script. Virginia Katz does a good job as Editor and veteran cinematographer Tobias Schliessler delivers some beautiful photography. the film has a beautiful look and great sets and production director John Myhre and set decorator Nancy Haigh have been nominated for an Academy Award for Art Direction. The costumes from the early sixties to the disco era are fantastic and a real trip down memory lane and has earned Sharen Davis an Academy Award nomination for Costume Design. The sound mixing has also garnered an Academy Award nomination. One of the problems with this film is the music itself. Despite being a popular Broadway show from 21-26 years ago there are no songs that have become part of the American songbook. Most popular musicals have one or more songs that become cover version classics of recording artists and have instant recall to the audience. Dreamgirls had none. Four additional songs were written for this movie and three of those are among the five songs up for the Oscar for Best Song. One of those will likely win but I don't see any of them being a hit by other artists in years to come. Despite trying to capture Motown the music ends up being average show tunes. Chorographer Fatima Robinson adapted to the screen the work of Michael Bennett from the stage play and also doubles as one of the Stepp Sisters on screen. This film could win two Oscars for art direction and costumes. Hudson will likely get it a third statuette and one of the songs unless they cancel each other out will probably earn it a fourth Award. It's a good film but more visually rewarding than musically rewarding. I would give it a 7.5 out of 10.