It's taken its time getting here but it's been worth the wait

Rating: 10/10 (20 August 2007)

You could say the musical has arrived or, to put it another way, has made a welcome comeback. Once upon a time, of course, they were ten-a-penny and the stars were made for them. Musicals sang and they danced and the best ones did both. And it seemed as if the directors were made for them, too. We had Stanley Donen and Vincente Minnelli and, to a lesser extent, we had George Sidney. But these versatile men could turn their hand to other things too, which helped when musicals fell out of favour. (Robert Wise won his two directing Oscars for musicals but you don't think of him as a director of musicals).
Some years ago a new kind of stage musical began to make inroads. More people seemed to be flocking to theatres in London and New York and around the world to see the latest Kander and Ebb or more probably the new Andrew Lloyd Webber. These shows would run and run, close and then re-open, maybe slightly altered or with new casts. Musicals became the fashion. The cinema, however, kept its distance. Once in a while a popular stage show made it to the screen but couldn't find the requisite audience, perhaps because the screen version lacked something, was weak in comparison; (Richard Attenborough killed "A Chorus Line" stone dead). But the talk was there. 'It's time to film that popular show, the one that's been around for years; yes, that one'. There was even talk of a film of Sondheim's "Follies", (the film of his "A Little Night Music" was one of the great failures). Eventually it happened; we had "Chicago".
To say "Chicago" bucked the trend would be an understatement. It wasn't a 'pop' musical like "Grease". To the public its songs would hardly be called well-known and since we no longer had stars geared specifically to the musical it gave us actors instead. Whether they could sing or dance almost seemed immaterial. It also gave us an untried director in Rob Marshall, yet by magic it worked. "Chicago" may not be a great musical in the way that "Singin in the Rain" or "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" are great musicals but it made us want to sing and dance again; it lifted our spirits.
And now we have "Dreamgirls". Like "Chicago" the talk of a movie version of "Dreamgirls" has been around for a very long time; the difference, however, is that while "Chicago" has been enjoying an almost continuous stage revival in recent years, "Dreamgirls" hasn't been seen since it closed on Broadway all those years ago; (in London it hasn't been seen at all). It also had one of those legendary stage performances, (in this case by Jennifer Holliday), that seemed impossible to duplicate. So, you may ask, what prompted a film version of "Dreamgirls" at this point? The only answer I can think of is that musicals are popular again even if, with "Dreamgirls", they were taking a chance.
The plot of "Dreamgirls" is that of a black singing group and their rise to fame in the 1960's. Supposedly they are based on the Supremes but this is not acknowledged and I would imagine the facts in the story bear no resemblance to what may or may not have happened with the Supremes. The songs are a very successful blend of the kind of soul music the Supremes specialized in and the kind of traditional Broadway score where a song is used to further the plot. And very good it is, too. In fact, I think it is better than "Chicago". (The director is the Oscar winning writer/director Bill Condon). This feels like a real film where "Chicago" looked like a filmed stage show and this time round they cast real singers who can act rather than actors who can sing.
The star, nominally, is Beyonce and I must confess I didn't know her work as a pop performer before this but she really is the business, singing and acting her little heart out. And there is an excellent turn from Eddie Murphy, (it seems he can sing, too), as a James Brown-like soul star with an inflated ego. For whatever reason, Murphy seems to know the character well.
But what about that performance that on the stage was legendary? Well, here they really have hit pay-dirt and again, as if by magic, they have found a star. Not an established star, mind you, but a new star and the circumstances surrounding the finding of this new star might have come, without reverting to cliché, from a fairytale. The star in question is Jennifer Hudson, an unknown who tried for her place in the sun on an American talent show called 'American Idol' and lost, (well, let's just say she didn't win the crown), but somebody was impressed, impressed enough to take a chance on her playing Effie, the lead singer dropped from the group for 'getting fat', replaced by the more glamorous character played by Beyonce and she's sensational. (She may have lost 'American Idol' but she won the Oscar). The show's big number is when Effie sings 'And I'm telling you I'm not going', (it has the effect of an aria), and Hudson does the seemingly impossible; she makes you forget Jennifer Holliday.
Of course, the trend for musicals may not last and Hudson's career on screen may be short-lived but one hopes her singing career is just beginning. Her voice and range are extraordinary and her performance in "Dreamgirls" serves to remind us just how pleasurable a really good musical performance can be.