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From Chicago to the top

Finally, another American musical succeeds on screen
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By Steffen Silvis
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
February 21st, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Ain't no Top 10 chart high enough. Rose, Knowles and Hudson are the Dreams.
After years of being a dead screen genre, the movie musical seemed to stir from its grave with the success of the celluloid version of the Fosse-Kandor-Ebb Chicago. Considering the backlog of Broadway shows that were never considered for film treatment, it seemed a second golden age of the musical might be at hand.
With the exception of the clever Reefer Madness: The Musical, which was actually a Showtime television film in the States, the excellent Chicago was followed by film versions of Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s warbling Phantom of the Opera, Jonathan Larson’s mawkish and strident Rent and Mel Brooks’ redundant The Producers, a musical whose only good number came from his hilarious 1968 film.
Now, perhaps, it’s time to hope for the resurrection again, as Bill Condon’s film of the Tom Eyen–Henry Krieger show Dreamgirls is a terrific adaptation that actually betters the original Broadway production.
Dreamgirls

Directed by Bill Condon
With Jamie Foxx, Beyoncé Knowles, Eddie Murphy, Danny Glover and Jennifer Hudson

Based on the rise of Motown and R&B, and the development of Diana Ross and the Supremes within the Motown empire, Dreamgirls is nothing less than an audacious history of African-American music from the early ’60s to the end of the ’70s, packaged as a rags-to-riches character drama.
Some changes have been made to the original stage version, mostly for the best. Though it works well in a theater, recitative — except in Jacques Demy’s charming The Umbrellas of Cherbourg — doesn’t work on screen. So the switch from sung-said to more or less straight dialogue in Dreamgirls was a wise choice. The other major change was to make the connections between real people and events clearer, moving the play’s action from Chicago to Detroit.
The story follows the growing success of a trio of young women singers who call themselves the Dreamettes. Deena (Beyoncé Knowles), Effie (Jennifer Hudson) and Lorrell (Anika Noni Rose) struggle to be noticed at local talent shows, and one night they finally get their wish. Curtis Taylor (Jamie Foxx), a promoter for the R&B star James Early (Eddie Murphy), hires the girls to serve as backup singers.
The main talent among the Dreamettes (who will quickly be repackaged as simply the Dreams) is Effie, a powerhouse singer who has naturally assumed the spot as lead in the group. But as the Dreams become more marketable, Taylor decides that Deena should sing lead, as she is far more beautiful and statuesque than the plus-size Effie.
This is obviously the Supremes’ saga, where the talented and troubled Florence Ballard had to step back behind the sleeker Diana Ross. As in Motown lore, Dreamgirls’ Effie hits the skids while Deena becomes a “superstar.”
With the noticeable exceptions of a few clumsy editing transitions between scenes, Condon’s film is a fluid, finely detailed piece of work. And, other than an odd ’70s disco number that seems to owe more to Madonna’s Blond Ambition Tour than to anything of the actual period, the director has a great eye for the times that his characters inhabit. A scene in which a rousing Motown song is turned into a white bubblegum dance number for American Bandstand is brilliant shorthand for the tension that lay between black music and the recording industry.
The actors, however, are the film, and Condon’s cast is first-rate. As the Ross-like pop diva, Knowles gives a perfectly modulated performance. Obviously one of the primary stars of the film, Knowles is almost unrecognizable for the first half-hour, as she meekly blends behind her co-singers, only fully blossoming into a formidable presence once she’s been marked for stardom.
The overrated Eddie Murphy manages to give a magnetic performance as a wastrel R&B Lothario who also finds himself hit by the girl-group juggernaut. Foxx, Danny Glover and Broadway star Rose all help generate power on the screen.
The film, though, belongs to newcomer Jennifer Hudson, a belter of the old school whose Effie is the soul of this story. Her rendition of the show-stopping “And I am Telling You I’m Not Going” alone should convince producers that the movie musical is not a modern contradiction in terms. Hudson is electric in a debut that is as promising as Streisand’s in ’68’s Funny Girl.
For musical fans, Dreamgirls is a dream come true.

Steffen Silvis can be reached at ssilvis@praguepost.com


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