SPARKLE, the remake of the film of the 1976 film of the same name, was set to be Whitney Houstons acting comeback. She was serious about it, too, having acquired the rights herself, as well as executive producing this incarnation, In it she succeeds in delivering a fine performance that is upstaged by the ferocious gospel solo she performs towards the end. As for the film itself, it is a frustratingly dull drama punctuated with some perfectly lovely vocal performances by American Idol hopeful Jordin Sparks in the title role, Carmen Ejogo as her sister, Sister, who is too beautiful for her own good, and Cee-Lo Green, in an opening number that sets the mood for a different film altogether.
Greens rumble of a voice that suggests danger of the darkest types danger is at odds with a flick that may scale the giddy heights of the soapiest of melodramas, but does so with a curiously sanitized touch. To be sure, wives are beaten, the seething politics of 1960s Detroit are debated, and felonies are committed, but at no time does the story venture far from a safety zone more akin to the formula dramas of the 1970s.
Houston is Emma, the strictly religious mother of three very different girls, and her own thwarted dreams of a singing career have rendered her bitter, inflexible, and emotionally withholding. The girls as is the way of such tales, are all very different. The eldest, Sister (Ejogo) is bad girl back from trying her luck in New York. The middle sister, Dolores (Tika Sumpter), dreams of going to medical school, and Sparkle is a songwriter who secretly longs to take the stage herself, but is too insecure. Instead she pushes Sister to take the stage after they sneak out after Moms curfew, and its Sister who wows the nightclub audience with her rendition of Sparkles bubble-gum song re-imagined as soft-core porn. She catches the eye of a would-be manager and respecter of female virtue, Stix (Derek Luke), and a politically incorrect, disrespecter of all things female, but very successful comedian, Satin (Mike Epps). In the blink of an eye, as is the way of fine show biz clichés, the three sisters have formed a singing group that is going places, Satin has stolen Sister from Stixs cousin (Omari Hardwick), and Emma eventually throws them all out of her elegant home without a second thought.
There is never a moment that even approaches the idea of originality. The characters are stock, and the story is a cliché-ridden morass of excess that builds to absurd proportions, and does so with a straight face. Props to Sparks for making Sparkles fresh-faced and squeaky clean persona merely predictable, not irksome. Also to Ejogo, who puts her heart and soul into a role that never makes it past two-dimensions.
SPARKLE is more like a dull matte finish, imperfectly executed with a few bright diamond cuts. It chugs along hitting all the expected stops along the one-way ticket to dullsville. Save the anguish; buy the album.
Your Thoughts?