Dreamgirls

Chris took me to see the preview of 'Dreamgirls' at the National Film Theatre tonight. He was apprehensive because he loves the original cast recording from 1982 or thereabouts and I was apprehensive because, well, I didn't - I've only heard it once and it was very '80s. Leaving that to one side, it's nice to see a film at the NFT on the big screen with excellent sound, especially a musical, so I settled back into the comfy chairs waiting to be entertained. And I was.

The story is one most people who like music will at least be familiar with, loosely based on the rise of Motown and the career of Diana Ross and the Supremes. Of course, bits of the story are changed, with Hitsville being set in a car dealership with the sign reading 'the sound of tomorrow' rather than ' the sound of young America' and all that. And some of the characters seem to merge at different points with Eddie Murphy starting off as a James Brown character morphing into Marvin Gaye (complete with crochet skullcap) doing a 'message song'. But that always happens in films like this so it would be churlish to dwell on it.

More amusing was the borrowing of iconic images of Diana Ross in the latter stages of the film - at one point it got to be a 'guess the song from the picture' with Beyonce photographed imitating Diana images from the late '60s through to late '70s disco diva. That was great fun!

I had to get that out of my system but it's not really what the film is about and doesn't relay its emotional intensity at various points. It was bright and brash and colourful throughout with excellent music (which sounds much better to me than the cast recording) and visuals. The excellent set pieces and clothes, the perfect sound and perfect choreography. I bet a lot of practice went into those scenes, including the throw-away clips that were used to show the passing years.

I didn't actually recognise Beyonce at first since she was very much the enthusiastic little girl with a big smile and big eyes. A happy and permanently excited naif. She was ok, I suppose, but playing the lead singer character meant she couldn't give vent to her real voice except for a new song added at the end. And Jamie Foxx played a very strange character who didn't actually do much except look menacing and stare into the middle distance. I didn't notice much acting at all and he was strangely inarticulate. Where was the charming rogue he must have been to achieve what he did? Why did people follow him? Where was the charisma? Maybe I should practice my middle-distance staring...

Two people deserve a special mention. Eddie Murphy was excellent. I'm not a great fan of his - he seems to have played the same character for much of his career but he really won me over in this film. He can sing, he can move and he can act. At one point when his hopes of a new career had just been demolished by the Jamie Foxx character he gets out his syringe kit so shoot up despite people around him trying to talk him out of it and you can almost feel the desperation and lack of hope and dreams dripping from the screen. He doesn't do or say much, maybe it's the expression of hopelessness on his face? And his set piece stage songs were some of the highlights for me with an excellently staged 'Steppin' To The Bad Side' (I think) with him out front, the Dreamettes behind and all of them flanked by a dozen or so dancers on platforms behind them all.

The other person is Jennifer Hudson who played Effie, the Dreamette who was dropped. What a voice and what a presence. She had a few set-pieces that were excellent but the one that'll be shown on all the film reviews is 'And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going', the song where she's told she's out of the group and her lover (the Jamie Foxx character) is leaving her. It was heart-rending and painful. What a voice she has - I know that Beyonce was playing a character with a softer voice but she was totally blown away by the powerhouse of Jennifer. She's definitely more in the school of Aretha than Diana where voices are concerned and this was reinforced by the imagery later in the film where she dressed in the colourful ethnic clothes and head-scarves of Aretha in the early '70s. I'll be watching her with interest.

I enjoyed it. A film I definitely want to see again and I want the soundtrack and probably the DVD when it comes out. I wonder if the success of this film will re-launch soul music?

And to finish it off I got a free bottle of Guinness afterwards since Guinness is launching a new version of the classic drink and sponsoring the current season of films. Could an evening out get any better?