But before we get to that specific musical number, Dreamgirls has plenty of plot details and characters to introduce. The premise starts out by showing three young women, Deena Jones (Beyonce Knowles), Lorrell Robinson (Anika Noni Rose) and Effie White (Jennifer Hudson) struggling to get even the barest amount of attention as singers. But one performance that manages to blow away the right people secures them a place as backup singers for hugely popular singer Jimmy Early (Eddie Murphy), with their work there being good enough for the trio to be spun-iff into their own solo group, The Dreams.
Conflicts arise when the man in charge of the three women, Curtis Taylor Jr. (Jamie Foxx) decides that Deena Jones should be the lead of the group while the most powerful voice of the group, Effie White, is demoted to backup singer. Effie leaves the group soon after while Deena and Lorrell stay with the band while a new woman is brought into the group in Effie's place. Plenty of further upheaval and turmoil, particularly surrounding the shady activities that Curtis Taylor Jr. has been up to on the side, occur for the group as their careers as noteworthy singers continue well into the 1970's.
Effie's dismissal from the group is punctuated by a tune entitled And I Am Tell You I'm Not Going, which serves to express Effie's frustrations with women she's considered her longstanding friends and with a man (Curtis Taylor Jr.) she considered a lover. Much of the musical numbers in Dreamgirls are depicted as simply the characters singing in stage but a more conventional depiction of a musical number is fully embraced here as Hudson, off-stage and even separate from all other characters in final verses, unleashes all of her inner pain in the form of a song that only becomes more and more powerful as it goes along. As Hudson's absolutely aces the final few lines of the song, her characters entire soul and eternal determination to keep on going can be seen as clear as day. It's an amazing sequence that Jennifer Hudson sings in an absolutely devastating way.
Dreamgirls was bound to peak with that pivotal sequence, though the movie was still going to come off lacking major areas even if Jennifer Hudson wasn't around to belt out that impressive song. While Dreamgirls remain prominently diverting, it has to be said that the film does come up short in fleshing out a number of major characters in the course of its plotline. Poor Lorrell Robinson has nothing to do for the majority of the movie, leaving the central friendship trio that anchors the entire movie feeling lackluster as a result. Curtis Taylor Jr. also becomes a mustache-twirling baddie too abruptly in the plot while more screentime for Jimmy Early wouldn't have hurt his mid-plot demise feel more impactful.
Director Bill Condon, no stranger to the world of musicals (he's the guy who directed Disney's new live-action take on Beauty and the Beast don't forget) directs the movie and the various musical numbers in a serviceable but not particularly inventive way, though he does show a knack for handling actors considering the strong performances he gets out of Knowles, Hudson and Murphy. Even when it goes through the motions though, Dreamgirls does manage to be solid musical fare that more often than not entertains while coming off as something that could have definitely used more depth for certain lead characters. Oh, and Jennifer Hudson totally owns her big musical number too, no doubt about that.
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