There's a list of 200 movies I've never seen, so I'm watching them in alphabetical order and writing (briefly) about each one after I watch it.
Dreamgirls
2006
Bill Condon
It was interesting seeing two of my general opinions about movies, one good and one bad, clash this week during my viewing experience of Dreamgirls.
General opinion number one is that I will usually be unappreciative of movies that are based on a musical. Dreamgirls opened on Broadway in 1981, so it was well established by the time it was adapted for the big screen in 2006. I've only seen a handful of musicals in a theater before, so my experience is limited, but every time I go, I have a blast. They are a spectacle. But I have issues with their transition to movies. I think you lose some of the excitement of live music and dancing, and you're left with a movie that just moves from set piece to set piece. The musical numbers can still be showstoppers, but there isn't really much in between. I want the in-between in my movies. I want nuance. Musicals are unnuanced by design, and so they are rarely GREAT as movies.
General opinion number two trumps number one every time—I will watch and mostly enjoy pretty much anything that has to do with the idea of "music." I'm not talking about featuring music (which, this does, obviously), but featuring themes and stories that are about music itself. If your movies has this, then it's bumped up at least a full number grade in my mind (that's why I'd grade Bohemian Rhapsody a 1/5 and not a 0/5, for instance).
Dreamgirls is certainly about music. It is, in fact, a film à clef—I learned a new phrase this week!—which means that it is a movie that tells a nonfiction story through the guise of fiction. In this case, Dreamgirls tells the story of Motown's Supremes and their inner circle. "Clef" is French for "key," meaning that there is a key, or table, that can be used to swap out the names in the movie for their real-life counterparts.
Beyoncé plays Deena Jones, a.k.a. Diana Ross. Jamie Foxx plays her manager/husband Curtis Taylor Jr., a.k.a. Berry Gordy Jr. Jennifer Hudson rightfully earns an Oscar playing Effie White, a.k.a. Florence Ballard. Even Deena's Cleopatra movie is probably a stand-in Diana's Mahogany (jeez, I really went into that interview unprepared, huh?). Using the facade of fiction, however, allows some of the details to be smudged a little bit, creating a more cohesive and exciting movie than real life typically allows.
Real or fiction or whatever, the point is that this movie is pretty much about one of the great—perhaps the greatest—Motown acts in their history, and it was quite a treat to follow the journey (good timing, after ruminating on Motown just a few weeks ago).
And then, obviously, it was a treat to actually watch the in-movie performances. It was kind of funny how easily you could distinguish between the musical numbers and the musical numbers, if that makes sense. The former being when the characters were performing for in-movie audiences, and the latter being when characters would start singing to perform for us, the audience watching the movie. The former worked like fucking gangbusters (making Eddie Murphy a resounding two for two in this project so far). The latter was... fine. Again, I'm just not the world's biggest musical-adaptation fan.
Still, great performances, great music, and a great "fictional" story all added up to a movie that I really liked. I didn't cry like Pam did, but I appreciated it all the same!
GRADE: 3.5 pukes out of 5
NEXT TIME: I'm gonna check out Drive and see if our good friend Dranders wants to talk about it a little more than he was allowed to during his interview.
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