Musicalfest: Dreamgirls

The 2007 marathon may be over, but I'd love to resurrect the thread of writing about musicals. Today I caught Dreamgirls on HBO and kept it on while I baked cookies (I like to think it was some kind of "get psyched for the Oscars" thing, since Bill Condon is directing the ceremony and they followed it up with X-Men). I think I've decided what I think is Dreamgirls' fundamental flaw: there's not even half enough ambition among the characters.  Before the movie came out, I'd always had the impression that Deena was supposed to be some sort of uber-Diva, someone who, as Diablo Cody once wrote of her leading lady's namesake, was "super beautiful but really mean, like Diana Ross." Clearly, Beyonce studied some old tape of Ross - she looks like her clone during the group performances, especially the one of the title song. However, the diva rep is nowhere to be found. Deena just sort of floats through the movie - she just seems to be present when things are happening, rather than being an actor in any of the fame-grabbing machinations of Jaime Foxx's Curtis.  He ends up so clearly the villain of the film, I found myself lamenting that his mustache wasn't long enough for him to literally twirl.  Jennifer Hudson's Effie is painted as a bit of an egomaniac at the beginning, but the question of affection versus disdain among her groupmates is never fully explored - it takes less than fifteen minutes of an over-two-hour film to go from the main cast singing about being a family to them kicking her out of the group. It just could have used more backstabbing, I guess. It has great music that skirts the line between the show tune-y and the era-evocative. Dreamgirls should be like Beyond the Valley of the Dolls except somewhat less ridiculous and, you know, without the peyote-fueled massacre at the end. Instead, it's just a bland story wrapped around some decent songs.