Bill Condon brings Michael Bennett’s faux MOTOWN musical from B'way to the big screen faultlessly for about 45 minutes, then drops the ball with a series of dramatic & musical misjudgements he’s either unable to fix or (more likely) unaware of. The story, a fictionalized take on the rise (and hollowing) of MOTOWN founder Berry Gordy is dramatized thru the slow eclipse of soulful R&B star Eddie Murphy (so good you resent the decades of waste) and the rise of an anodyne Girl Group modeled on The Supremes (though Beyoncé’s Diana Ross turns Donna Summers on us). It's the classic American Success story about what gets lost on the way up, and must have worked like magic on B’way in Bennett’s maximalist staging. But Condon can’t figure out how to move past the purely diegetic use of songs (those sung as part of a stage act) and into the more integrated or sung-thru musical numbers that directly tell the story & work as dialogue rather than as commentary, filming both types of song in the same heightened manner (swoops & circling camera). And why deliver them all as powerhouse audition numbers? Exhausting. Worth a look for the high gloss production and a very impressive Mr. Murphy (where has he been hiding these talents?). Lower expectations for best result.
DOUBLE-BILL: Made more in the moment, SPARKLE/’76 tells a similar kind of story on the cheap, with ‘Blaxploitation’ trimmings. It also could have been better.
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