Dreamgirls

Joseph Smith | 18 January 2007

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Dreamgirls
Rated M
UIP

This triple Golden Globe award winning film from director Bill Condon deals with racism, trust, superficiality, family, excess and romance and it even has some good songs too.

Dreamgirls is a musical which begins in 1960s Detroit where car salesman Curtis Taylor, Jr (Jamie Foxx) is looking to make his mark in the music business.

While at a local talent show, Taylor notices The Dreamettes – an African-American all girl trio made up of Deena (Beyonce Knowles), Lorrell and big built lead singer Effie, played by Golden Globe best supporting actress winner and former American Idol finalist Jennifer Hudson.

The Dreamettes are clearly based on Diana Ross and The Supremes, however, parallels can be drawn with Beyonce’s own recent pop group Destiny’s Child.

The girls have the voice and the look and Taylor believes he can make them great.

Eddie Murphy plays James ‘Thunder’ Early, a role that won him the best supporting actor Golden Globe. Thunder is a pioneer of soul and rock ‘n’ roll who allows The Dreamettes to sing back-up for him. Taylor soon launches the girls as The Dreams, who become a success in their own right, far surpassing the achievements of Thunder.

The Dreams’ rise to stardom is fraught with challenges, however. Their first hit single is re-recorded nationwide by an all-white pop group, a common practice in the racially-prejudiced USA of the 1950s and 1960s.

Taylor’s romantic relationship with Effie is tested when he suggests that Deena, despite having a weaker voice, should be the new lead singer. His stated reason is that Deena’s voice better suits the pop charts. The truth is that Taylor believes having Deena’s figure out front will help conquer a national market which is heavily influenced by the appearance of pop stars.

Finally, as Effie’s commitment to the group deteriorates due to her disappointment with Taylor’s direction, she is replaced in the trio by a less talented but thinner singer.

The relegating of Effie from lead to backing vocalist for no reason other than her looks and her subsequent firing from The Dreams is a moving series of scenes. In a world where the appearance of film and music stars is more scrutinized than ever and superficiality in society at large is increasing, it is good to see the theme sensitively dealt with in a Hollywood film.

Even Christians can struggle with letting a person’s appearance influence how they relate to them, as evidenced by discussion in a recent forum thread.

Of course, the Bible shows us in Proverbs and 1 Peter that beauty is far more than skin deep. Similarly, the way that Jesus loved those that society rejected as recorded in the gospels means that Christians have been given a higher standard in deciding how to treat people. I think anyone who has ever been passed over or rejected because of their appearance will sympathise with Effie in her unjust rejection.

Effie’s response in song as she is kicked out of the group is undoubtedly one of the film’s most powerful moments and her expression of rejection and need for love through song was extremely moving in its own right. However, I find musical films a troubling format.

When characters who have been conversing in spoken dialogue suddenly break into song, I find it jarring. Therefore, despite Effie making her most dramatic and impassioned plea in this song – and therefore strongly appealing for the viewer’s empathy – I was ironically most distanced as a viewer, due to the breaking of narrative form.

Hopefully those who are more at ease with musicals will not have the same reaction.

The film speeds through the next few years to the 1970s. Taylor and Deena are now married, the group has tasted great success and Effie is now a single mother struggling to make ends meet.

In the latter half of the film, relationships that were based on little more than lust and convenience are severely tested, while those based on family or true long-term friendship are shown to have far greater strength.

The drug addicted and sexually aggressive ‘Thunder’ Early is played very sympathetically by Eddie Murphy, particularly in the scene where he makes his final television performance many years after his heyday. In fact, Thunder’s life, which is only a subplot in Dreamgirls, is a tough but realistic lesson about the dangers of a life of excess, imbalance and spiritual emptiness.

Dreamgirls is based on a 1980s Broadway musical and the adaptation to the big screen has been a successful one, taking out the Golden Globe for Best Musical/Comedy.

The story moves at a blistering place, dealing intelligently with its various themes, but not getting too preachy or bogged down in any of them.