Dreamgirls: Movie & DVD Review (2006)

(Originally published 2006)

Given the groundswell of hype surrounding the new Bill Condon musical “Dreamgirls,” there’s every reason to expect it to be on par with Rob Marshall's “Chicago,” which was based on Condon’s script and which was one of 2002’s best films.

The reality, though, is somewhat different.

While “Dreamgirls” is a good movie, what’s missing is the soul that could have made it a great movie. This glittering adaptation of the long-running 1981 Broadway show has fine production values and it’s enjoyable in parts, but it isn't memorable as a whole.

Unlike "Chicago," for instance, or "Ray," "Cabaret," “Moulin Rouge,” "My Fair Lady," "Funny Girl" or the 1954 version of "A Star is Born" with Judy Garland and James Mason, you don't leave the film exhilarated or spent. Instead, you leave it feeling somewhat ambivalent, with one major exception--Jennifer Hudson, who gives the film’s best, most heart-felt performance as Effie White, the brassy member of the 1960s girl group the Dreams, itself a thinly veiled version of the Supremes.

Though Hudson falls short in those scenes where her lip sync is distractingly out of sync, her undeniable talent and powerful voice nevertheless pummel through the movie in ways that give it a generous lift.

An “American Idol” castaway now enjoying her hey day, Hudson may be the film’s novice actor, but she steals each scene she’s in, deftly bulldozing over her seasoned co-stars with a rawness and a confidence that’s magnificent to behold. Her star isn’t just born here, it’s sent over the moon and we’re all better for it.

As you'd expect, her defining moment comes when she sings the powerhouse ballad “And I Am Telling You (I’m Not Going),” which was made famous by the great Jennifer Holliday and which Hudson does proud in an extended sequence that proves the movie's highlight and the story’s turning point.

Just before she sings it, Hudson’s Effie was ousted from the Dreams, which includes singers Lorrell Robinson (Anika Noni Rose) and her unexpected rival, Deena Jones (Beyonce Knowles, beautiful yet slight). Effie’s trouble is that she’s considered trouble, a diva with a self-destructive attitude that might bring down the group just as they’re on the cusp of stardom.

Worse for her is that her lover and the group's manager Curtis Taylor Jr. (Jamie Foxx, coasting) believes Effie is too ethnic for a country divided by the civil rights movement. And so, by turning his back on her by championing the thinner, more white-friendly Deena as the new star of the group, he essentially has turned his back on his own race.

All of this could have made for a revealing, powerful film about how blacks were treated in the music industry during the 1960s and 70s--and how they had to strategize to be successful--but it doesn’t. Instead, Condon ("Kinsey," "Gods and Monsters") goes for the glitz, the glamour and the infighting, which generates its share of energy but no depth.

Working hard in a subplot is Eddie Murphy as James "Thunder" Early, a James Brown-like entertainer who is on fire as the movie begins, yet whose collapse into disillusionment and drug addiction becomes disappointingly flat when the industry turns against him. The flatness isn't Murphy's fault--he's good here, particularly in early scenes--but a fault of the script, which doesn't allow the actor to have his moment the way it absolutely allows Hudson to have hers.

Grade: B