Overwhelming, spectacular and gritty!

Rating: 10/10 (26 December 2006)

This is one of the best adaptions of a Broadway musical I've ever seen. The chiefly African-American audience I watched the movie with was equally blown away. We laughed, gasped, sniffled and applauded--even applauded a celluloid image--in the same places. Why not? This is a story of how black music was whitened.
The screenplay employs an interesting technique of starting a song as part of the plot with the characters are in regular clothes and then continuing it with full production values with glitzy costumes, wigs, lighting and audience on stage.
Dreamgirls is like Ray with big production numbers. It shows the gritty side as well as the glamor of show business as daring performers attempted to break through beyond race music to the chiefly white audience of pop, where the money is. The performers are currently advised to "lighten it" (that is less racy with less lust and less pelvic writhing) to be commercial. Still, their original songs are covered by even lighter artists, not just more pop black stars, but even whites.
The script, by director, Bill Condon, and book, by Tom Eyen, make the point, who introduced the song "Hound Dog", written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, both white? No, it wasn't Elvis, but Big Momma Thornton, in 1953.
We soon see that it isn't even enough to have a catchy song, but how much the promoter pays to have the record played on the radio. These are the days before Congress outlawed payola.
With all the wonderful accolades given to the Dreamgirls, all well deserved, Eddie Murphy emerges as did Jaimie Foxx in Ray, as very musical and a superb performer. While Ray stayed close to his piano, Murphy as the composite character James "Thunder" Early, with a cap to cover the space between his front teeth, struts in satin pants and runs the gamut from rhythm & blues of Curtis Mayfield and Smokey Robinson, boogie, and finally to raucous soul of James Brown. He skips over the social-commentary stage of Marvin Gaye because he and the "girls" can't sell it to their agent. Who knew Murphy could pull this off, we can assume with Condon's direction? Early is a tragic figure who tries hard to crossover and appeal to "the kids" as the popular sounds change quickly from the mid-1960s into the next decade.
The score by Henry Krieger and lyrics by Tom Eyen takes the Dreamettes through local Detroit R & B for what was then called Negro race music to audiences to a lighter Motown sound to appeal to the white kids, who buy records and show tickets, and then through the flower-child era of the late 1960s to definitely Caucasian disco in the 1970s. There is a very realistic scene in what looks very much like the Fontainebleau Hotel's night club in Miami Beach where the Dreamgirls get their big break in front of a white, mainly Jewish audience, which accepts them as it did in the late 1960s for the Supremes and Diana Ross.
There are many glances and nonverbal reactions that make the film quite clever. The director, in this case Condon, is usually responsible. These glances sometimes, but not always, can be seen on the Broadway stage. Condon translated into the big screen the direction and choreography of the late Michael Bennett.
Unlike Murphy, Jamie Foxx puts away his musical chops for the role of suave Cadillac dealer and then agent for the Dreamettes and soon Early, Curtis Taylor Jr. He renames them the Dreamgirls, makes them sound less black and, and breaks through to white venues soon after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which abolished segregation in public accommodations. He's the closest thing to Berry Gordy, Jr., who created the Motown sound.
Songwriter and composer "C.C." (Clarence Conrad) White, younger brother to big-voiced Effie White of the Dreamettes, is memorably played by Keith Robinson. He is a composite of the teams of Holland-Dozier-Holland and Leiber-Stoller, cranking out those hits. He can lighten the boogie, but draws a line at disco.
Not enough can be said about the women. Effie as the largest Dreamgirl with the biggest voice and most attitude is played by American-Idol reject Jennifer Hudson, who should win many awards for her work. First Taylor replaces her for the slimmer and blander Deena (Beyonce' Knowles) so that Effie, who can do the runs and the belting, must sing backup with the youngest, Lorrell (Anika Noni Rose). Then she is told that her absenteeism and lateness is causing her to be bounced from the group for not being professional (we later learn that she had a good reason). Since Effie loves him Taylor and they have a relationship, she realizes that she is being forced to give up both ties. She registers her protest in the show stopping number which ends act one of the play.
The previews of "And I'm Telling You, I'm Not Going," gave the impression that she screams her head off in the number. Not so, at least not right away. She takes a long time to build to the climax. She arrives shortly before the Dreamettes open in Miami Beach to learn that she has been replaced by a slim, curvaceous black singer. Michelle (Sharon Leal). Effie starts the song quietly and hurtfully. Taylor stops and listens, and a dolly camera makes rings around her. He finally turns and leaves, and Effie (Hudson) sings a musical tantrum. When she's done, our audience, seemingly emotionally spent, broke out into strong applause for the screen. I couldn't have been the only one with goosebumps.
There's plenty of laughter, too, from Early and from the looks. Most of us left 2 hours 11 minutes later emotionally drained.