Dreamgirls: DreamWorks Delivers Dishy Detroit Divas

Twenty-five years after it opened at the Imperial Theatre on Broadway, almost to the day, Dreamgirls is slowly but steadily working it's way up the charts like a Motown single by Smokey or well, The Supremes.

True story: Diana Ross was on The Late Show with David Letterman recently. When the gap-toothed host asked the First Lady of Motown, the model for the musical's Deena Jones, if she had seen the movie. Ross, who has made it well known that she has never seen the theatre version, smiled. "No, but I'm planning to see it with my lawyers," she replied in a voice dripping with venom.

It hasn't been an easy couple of decades for the big budget Hollywood musical. Before and after World War Two the major studios, particularly MGM, churned out musicals and musical comedies like Ramblers coming off an assembly line.

But since the turbulence and turmoil of The Sixties made musicals like "Oklahoma" or "The Sound of Music" seem irrelevant, it's rare to see a musical make it to the screen. When they do, they often misfire, like Madonna as Evita Peron.

So it's refreshing and exciting to see a tremendously talented cast and director take on this long anticipated project and hit it out of the park on almost every level.

The film begins at the legendary Apollo Theatre Amateur Night competition where a trio of female singers is recruited to become back-up singers for James "Thunder" Early, played with smoothness and debonair by Eddie Murphy. While Murphy used to do a wicked James Brown in his stand-up, the character is actually a blend of J.B, Marvin Gaye and Jackie Wilson.

While Dreamgirls is obviously a loosely fictionalized version of the story of the triumphs and tragedies of Diana Ross and The Supremes, this is a musical and not a documentary.

The tabloid backstage history of Motown legends like Ross, founder and hitmaker Barry Gordy and others are simply the underlying structure that the film is built upon.

Dreamgirls is very traditional in structure. Anyone familiar with musicals as a genre with recognize many elements, perhaps the most popular being the show stopping first act finale. Live theatrical performances of Dreamgirls are performed in two acts with an intermission. A savvy producer wants a big number to keep audiences in their seats and have them buzzing for more during intermission.

There are first act closers and there are first act closers. And then there is "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going".
(Spoiler alert: Do not read on if you don't know the story and don't want plotlines revealed)

Effie, played by American Idol contestant Jennifer Hudson, is the large and in charge leader of "The Dreams", as the group is now known. Effie is in love with the Gordy-inspired Curtis Taylor, Junior (Jamie Foxx), who is driven to take his group to the top, replacing Effie both onstage and in the bedroom, with the thinner more glamorous Deena (Beyonce Knowles).

"And I Am Telling YouŠ" is a star-maker of a number which brought the house down nightly when performed on Broadway by original Effie Nell Carter. In the movie, Hudson nails it. Watching her growl out her pain and determination is to watch a star being born. Take the kids' tuition money out of the bank and take any odds that Ms. Hudson will be going home with Oscar in a few months.

The second half of the movie follows Effie's struggles as a single mother while Curtis produces hit after hit for The Dreams and other groups like The Campbell Connection (a Jackson Five-style group).  The story, while interesting, is a bit melodramatic, like so many musicals, but it is the music and the performances that make the movie soar and send chills up your spike.

Some reviewers have commented that Hudson upstages Beyonce. That is unfair. The musical and the movie are designed to showcase Effie and her songs. We are meant to root for her to not only survive but to triumph.

An unexpected thrill was Eddie Murphy's performance as "Thunder" Early. Whether kneeling at the feet of a swooning fan, or sipping from a flask on the back of the tour bus as he chats up a back-up singer, Murphy dazzles. When his character numbs himself with junk after selling out to sing romantic ballads, it breaks your hearts knowing what is inevitable. Some viewers might feel the emotion in such scene is a bit contrived, cliché and over the top. But musical theatre usually treats life in bold sweeps and doesn't deal much in subtlety. That's not a slam, just the nature of the medium. Murphy is truly touching in his performance both musically and dramatically and hopefully an Academy Award will follow his Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor also.

The story delivers a happy ending of sorts, although montages make reference to the turmoil in the country and the world (civil rights marches, Vietnam, assassinations, campus and inner city riots) that is reflected in the turmoil in the character's lives.

Moviegoers who lived through the Sixties and Seventies will get a kick out of the meticulously designed costumes from those eras. The Afros and disco threads will have you thinking you're watch reruns of "Soul Train" with Don Cornelius and ads for Afro-Sheen.

Directed and adapted for the screen by Bill Condon, who wrote the script for the adaptation of "Chicago", Dreamgirls is a weapon of mass entertainment. It is that rare achievement: an artistic and commercial success that is also fitting entertainment for the whole family from kindergartners to grandparents.

Grade: A+