Dreamgirls: How to push my buttons


There is a lot wrong with Dreamgirls, the one-time Oscar lock that is now marginalized due to poor critical response. The few purely diagetic songs stumble into the plotline almost apologetically, the reaction shots of Jamie Foxx grow more and more ridiculous, the quasi-biographical historical details only get in the way of the central melodrama. I acknowledge it all. But the movie still worked like gangbusters for me, and I think the reason why can be summed up in four words: going all the way.

Noel retreated from the movie, embarrassed, when Jennifer Hudson started losing her cool in the musical's big solo number. She flaps her arms, squats like she's got the stomach flu, waddles on ugly flat shoes in an unflattering gold suit, and of course, screeches like a blues shouter. (Later, tellingly, the same thing happens to Beyoncé in a recording session.) But that's where I knew that nothing could change my love for this movie. The movie did not care whether Hudson was making a fool of herself. It didn't care whether it was too much for Noel or anybody else watching. The whole point is that music is pure only when the audience has faded from view.

Do I believe that crap? Not really, although I'm willing to believe lots of things provisionally in a darkened theater. But the movie isn't quite that simple. It reminded me of Grace of My Heart with its insistence that pop music hides deep emotions -- each song comes out of a message that the singer (and/or writer) wants to send to some specific other person. And in the big numbers, the audience shifts; Hudson begins by aiming her song at Foxx, but ends by appealing to the empty chairs in the nightclub. The Dreams' signature number is ostensibly aimed at men in general, but in the final performance becomes a promise to Hudson's daughter. Noel made the point on the ride home that he wouldn't be inclined to listen to the soundtrack if he owned it -- meaning the comment as the kiss of death for a musical. But the numbers here are so tied to the performances on screen, the visual presence of the performer in the scene and the meaning of what surrounds her, that I think a soundtrack wouldn't get you much. That observation, though, doesn't diminish the impact of the numbers in their cinematic context.

These are simple moves, nothing fancy. Like the exhilarating 180-degree camera spin where the backstage rehearsal segues seamlessly into the onstage performance, they were not invented by this movie. But Dreamgirls uses them with such abandon, with such a sense of joy, and without any apology if you find them cheesy. The movie simply won me over with its willingness to go all the way, its defiance of your ridicule, its loyalty to these characters as they belt out their emotions in such oversized ways in these blatantly artificial, commercial contexts.

I don't intend to defend that attitude against the many charges that can be leveled against the film. All I can say is that it moves me deeply. A couple of years ago I fell in love with Kevin Spacey's over-the-top Bobby Darin biopic Beyond the Sea for much the same reason -- Spacey and the movie were absolutely unafraid of going all the way. I'm in love again -- and I'm pretty sure this movie isn't going to turn up its nose at me. The great thing about an attraction to unabashed sincerity is that you never get jilted.

Posted: Sat - January 20, 2007 at 08:27 PM         |

©