Dir: Bill Condon

Starring: Jamie Foxx, Beyonce Knowles, Eddie Murphy, Jennifer Hudson

From their beginnings at The Detroit Theater Talent Show, to their long term backup support for Jimmy Early, secret pregnancy and a contract so tight you can’t breathe without permission, The Dreams, the band which is quite-definitely-nothing-to-do-with whatsoever The Supremes, bring us on an emotional rollercoaster from the moment that Dreamgirls begins.

This film begins rather sweetly, with the apparently good natured Curtis Taylor Jr, (Foxx) snatching up the talented Dreamettes (Knowles, Hudson, Rose) from obscurity to support Jimmy Early (Murphy) on his never-ending tour of city nightclubs. And that sweetness is something which rather stunts the film throughout. Knowles plays Deena Jones, again, definitely not Diana Ross, but the character is far from the legendary diva we all know and are slightly bemused by. Instead, Deena is sickeningly nice, even when she is stabbing fellow Dream Effie White in the back and sleeping with her long term boyfriend. You feel as though you are being forced to route for her, especially towards the latter part of the film when it becomes clear that it is the band’s manager, Curtis, is the real bad guy and refuses to let her pick a gritty drama over his nonsense piece of fluff film, ‘Cleopatra’ or to get pregnant, something that the previously sheltered girl apparently wished to do.

However, it is the musical side of the film more than any of this that really sticks out as something worth mentioning. The songs are glossy and well choreographed, even if some of the lyrics (You and me are a family/Stretching out like a great big tree) do leave something to be desired. Also slightly confusing to the viewer is that the film doesn’t really hit ‘musical gear’ until Deena is put onto lead vocals, around 30 minutes into the film. More than that, the classic Motown sound you might’ve been excepting is surprisingly lacking in the film, replaced mainly with show tunes and (most notably from Jimmy Early) oddly lounge singer-esque ballads.

Both the music and the sugar coating of Knowles’s character cast a shadow over the more interesting issues of Effie’s pregnancy and terribly named child Magic, Jimmy’s heroin addiction and Lorrell’s (Rose) desire for Jimmy to get a divorce and end up marrying her. Had Dreamgirls been a darker and more cutthroat representation of the Motown music industry it would certainly have been more enjoyable, as it would’ve been if it had defined itself as a musical earlier on. That said, it’s still an enjoyable watch, and there are worse ways to spend time with people than looking at all of those pretty costumes!

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