Supremely entertaining

Newcomer Hudson brings down the house in energetic 'Dreamgirls'

Robert Denerstein, Rocky Mountain News

Friday, December 22, 2006

Unless you've been living under a rock, you already know that Dreamgirls was a smash Broadway musical about a singing group that bore a striking resemblance to the Supremes. Though fictitious, the musical managed to bring an entertaining bit of Motown history to Broadway, and the movie version offers some of the same pleasures.

Full of strong performances and outsize musical energy, Dreamgirls - which opens on Monday - has all the makings of a big-time holiday hit, and it deserves to become one.

As you may know from all the pre-movie hype, Jennifer Hudson is the movie's great discovery. Hudson, an American Idol contestant who didn't win, gives the kind of performance that should speak to even the most resistant of viewers. As Effie White, the initial lead singer of a group called The Dreamettes, Hudson delivers a knockout blow.

Hudson's rendition of And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going - a heart-wrenching, show-stopper of a tune - has "bring down the house" written all over it, and all the talk you've heard about an Oscar nomination seems entirely justified.

The other women in the group (Beyonce Knowles and Anika Noni Rose) are also quite good, but they come in second behind Hudson, who basically dominates the proceedings.

In addition to telling a story, Dreamgirls also provides a brief but revealing picture of how black music was regarded during the '60s. Black artists routinely had their songs "covered" by white artists, and it was difficult for so-called "race music" to find mainstream airplay. It took money in the form of payola to change things.

The men in the movie do equally good work. Jamie Foxx signs on as Curtis Taylor Jr., the car dealer who becomes a Detroit music impresario. Danny Glover has a wonderful turn as an old-school music manager, and Eddie Murphy does memorable work as James "Thunder" Early, a James-Brown type singer with a flair for womanizing.

Murphy, whose name also has been mentioned as a possible Oscar nominee, starts out as king of the R&B heap, but slowly allows the cracks in Early's armor to show. Eventually, he's pushed into the shadows behind the women who started as his backup singers. Curtis undermines Early's creativity and his manhood. And when Early rebels against it by reclaiming his musical turf, Murphy works with a rhythmic, punchy vengeance.

The movie also deconstructs the making of a mainstream sensation. Roughly halfway through, Curtis replaces Effie as the group's lead singer because Beyonce's Deena is more "beautiful" and more easily adaptable to white expectations. Besides, her singing is more "acceptable" than Effie's soul-shaking style. Hudson's voice underscores all this: The woman can make her voice rumble through the lower registers like an oncoming subway train.

Dreamgirls isn't so much character-driven as it is propelled by the collective energy of young women who want to sing, by a group that's gradually gaining its confidence and by the ultimate razzle-dazzle of big-time success and the people who engineer and control it.

I can't say that the story has the same kind of riveting energy as the music. I've read that Mary Wilson, a real Supreme, very much liked the movie, but thought Beyonce's Deena was a little too much under Curtis' sway, that she didn't show quite enough dynamism. It's a fair criticism, and I share it. Moreover, the story of how Deena begins to see through Curtis' controlling ways may not have enough liberating kick.

Director Bill Condon, who wrote the screenplay for the musical Chicago and who directed Gods and Monsters and Kinsey, can't always solve the stage-to-screen riddle, but he comes on strong at the end, which is crucial because every musical should send you out of the theater with a buzz in your brain and a sense that you've seen a real show.

That's how Dreamgirls makes you feel. Remember the feeling. It's called entertainment.

The original Dream Girls

• Began as: The Primettes (Barbara Martin, Diana Ross, Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson) in 1959.

• Became the Supremes: when Motown's Berry Gordy required a name change when signing them in January 1961.

• Just like the movie: The Supremes, despite the objections of Florence Ballard, transitioned into Diana Ross & The Supremes while the fictional Dreams were reconfigured into Deena Jones & The Dreams.

• Not so much like the movie: Ballard, the model for Effie's character, never found happy solo success after being ousted from the group in 1967. She was replaced with Cindy Birdsong and died broke in 1976, six years after Ross bolted to pursue her own solo career.

• Of note: Dreamgirls opens on Monday.

Robert Denerstein is the film critic. Denersteinb@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5424