Dream On

Dreamgirls. Beyoncé Knowles, Eddie Murphy, Jamie Foxx,
Danny Glover, and Jennifer Hudson star in a film written by Bill
Condon and Tom Eyen and directed by Condon.

Reviewed by Max Burke

The Hollywood movie musical was just a few years ago an
endangered species. But now, thanks more to Baz Luhrmann’s
exemplary Moulin Rouge! than to the over-hyped Chicago of a few
years back, the movie musical is a genre on the rise. Enter
Dreamgirls, this season’s crossover hit-in-the-making. Brought to
the screen by supremely confident director Bill Condon, the
relentlessly over-the-top and genuinely entertaining film can’t
rise to the challenge of becoming more than the sum of its
parts.

However, those individual parts are more than enough to satisfy
even the most cynical holiday movie-goer. Beyoncé Knowles as Deena
Jones, a fictional character loosely based on Diana Ross, and Jamie
Foxx as music manager Curtis Taylor ground the cast with two
excellent performances. Eddie Murphy pours himself into the role of
Jimmy Early, a soul singer modeled most closely on James Brown, but
whose character also contains nods to Marvin Gaye, Wilson Pickett,
and Stevie Wonder, among other R&B luminaries. His every
appearance in the film is a delight, and the performance is worthy
of any and all accolades it receives.