Blogchunks

Movie Comments: Dreamgirls

I saw Dreamgirls a little over a week ago.

Is there anyone other than me who felt that this movie isn't really as great as it was supposed to be?

I had three main problems with it. I'll dwell on those, and skip over almost all of the good parts, because you can read raves about those all over the internet.

First, I don't think this film really works as a musical. This is surprising, considering it's based on a musical. But here is what I mean: In a "musical", you have people singing and dancing in inappropriate places and at inappropriate times. This is how you know for sure it's a musical, because when they do that, it feels like a musical (actually, it feels damn weird at first, until you get used to it). In Dreamgirls, all the singing in the first half of the movie (roughly) happened in situations where singing would have been pretty appropriate--singers on stage, for instance--so it didn't feel like a musical, it felt like a normal movie about musicians.

Then, all of a sudden, there's a scene where one character (played by Jennifer Hudson) starts singing in a completely inappropriate situation. This would be perfectly normal in a musical, but since we haven't been given any obvious "this is a musical" cues up to that point, it ends up being an extremely jarring moment in the film. Seriously, even knowing in advance that the movie was supposed to be a musical didn't help me here. It just feels wrong, flat-out wrong, and that was the point when I started downgrading my opinion of the film, which I had felt was pretty superb up to that point.

In order to have prevented this situation from happening, there should have been at least two scenes like this earlier in the movie, preferrably with one of them right at the beginning. This would have established the "this is a musical" mindset right away. Alternatively, they could have just transformed the whole thing into a straight drama, with lots of realistic musical numbers. Either way would have worked, although I think a full-blown and correctly set up musical would have been the better choice. What they did in reality was try to straddle the midline between these two choices, and it didn't work. In a straight drama, people don't burst into song in the middle of a conversation. And in a straight musical, they typically doesn't let realism get in the way of the music.

Second problem: A lot of the raves about this movie are pointed at singer Jennifer Hudson, and in fact, just earlier today, she was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. She may deserve that Oscar, for her acting. But what I want to talk about is her singing, which has everyone acting all impressed, except for me. When she was singing the lead part in the trio, in the first section of the film, then I was impressed. But after she started in with the solo numbers, I quickly realized that here was someone with a really great talent, who really needed some sensible guidance on how to use it. The problem is most definitely not her voice, which is fabulous and powerful, but her style of singing. I kid you not: I had never heard of Jennifer Hudson prior to seeing this movie, so I had no idea who she was, and knew nothing about her background. Nevertheless, at one point during the movie, I found myself thinking, "She sounds just like an American Idol contestant." Imagine my amusement when I discovered that's exactly what she was.

What I mean is that she tends to lay on the drama a little too thick, which makes the song tiresome instead of exciting. I have to wonder if she's infatuated with the power of her own voice, and is making the mistake of thinking that more is automatically better. The truth is that too much power actually has much less of an impact.

The most amusing analogy I can think of to explain this concept is that of a teenager who is mightily impressed by the power of the word "fuck." Being infatuated with that power, the teenager proceeds to use the word about twenty times every minute, not realizing that the result is more ridiculous sounding than impressive. To retain the its power, "fuck" must be used in some moderation, at which point it becomes one of the more useful and versatile words in the English language.

To bring this back into the realm of music, imagine if Beethoven had written a symphony that called for the orchestra to play fortissimo for about 85% of its length. Critics would quite rightly call it trash, regardless of any obvious talent he might have displayed in its composition. Or, imagine if Charlie Parker had played nothing but really, really fast notes, all the time showing off his mad fingerin' skillz. He never would have been considered a jazz great if he had played like that--rather, he would have been considered an idiot savant. Good musical performance requires an amount of restraint on the part of the performer, in order to not spoil the climaxes of the song, which aren't going to seem very big if the whole song is big. It's a matter of contrast, not a matter of absolute volume.

With a little experience, and hopefully some constructive criticism from people who care, Hudson has the potential to become a first rate singer. I hope this happens, because then I can buy her CDs (or, okay, download her songs from iTunes). She should also seriously consider pursuing ensemble work--with a couple of really good backup singers, for example, like in the first half of this movie. No lie, that was some good stuff. Just make sure she sings lead.

Moving on to my final issue: I felt there was a substantial problem with the dramatic arc of this movie, specifically the problem of trying to maintain a good emotional pace when the primary story concerns a trio of women who start out with a fabulous sound, only to turn into a mediocre pop trio when Mr. Dumbass Producer Guy (Jamie Foxx) first demotes the lead singer to backup, and then throws her out of the group entirely. The music suffered from these transitions. It became much more pedestrian, the pop music I heard repeated endlessly on AM radio in the 70's until I could hardly stand it anymore. This is a problem because, in a musical, the music obviously plays such a central role that it is the primary source of drama. So, when the film goes from really excellent music to music that isn't all that spectacular, you end up with a dramatic arc that starts out very strong, and then fizzles out into a long, tedious anti-climax. It doesn't work, and I found myself getting fairly bored towards the end. There was what was supposed to be a big, climactic number to finish things off, but I didn't think that final song was nearly strong enough to overcome the malaise that had occupied the previous 45 minutes. (Hudson didn't sing lead in this song--a fact which was realistic within the storyline, but which really had a detrimental effect on the impact of the song. I guess this is yet another example of how the movie didn't quite work as a musical. As I have said, a full-blown musical typically doesn't let realism get in the way of the music, and they really went for realism at the expense of music in this movie. Obviously, this realism would have been a tremendous asset, if only they had decided to make the movie a straight drama, and here we come back full-circle to my original objection.)

This is sounding like a pretty negative review, but please realize that what I've written here are the only problems I've been able to find with this movie. I think these are significant enough so that I am in complete agreement with the Motion Picture Academy, who failed to nominate it for a Best Picture award. However, that doesn't mean that it's not worth seeing, because it most definitely is. I may even give it another look, if I have time--the beginning parts are absolutely worth seeing multiple times, and perhaps a second look will give me a fresh perspective on the rest of the film. (Also, you've just got to see Eddie Murphy in this movie. Here's a guy who really does deserve that Oscar nomination...which he got, earlier today.)

posted by cke @ 11:49 PM