You've heard this girl group's sad song before

THERE'S a scene near the end of the musical melodrama Sparkle -- which plays as if someone threw Dreamgirls against a wall and tried unsuccessfully to glue the pieces back together -- when the late Whitney Houston sings the gospel hymn His Eye is on the Sparrow. Houston plays Emma Anderson, the interfering mother of three daughters who want to form a musical group, a kind of Supremes of funk, but a tragedy has befallen them. It's a tragedy as fake as most of Sparkle, but Houston's song is the real thing: moving, accomplished and delivered with a voice of spiritual understanding.

It's the only authentic moment in Sparkle, and it comes with the sad irony that surrounds Houston's entire performance. Emma doesn't want her girls to sing because she is a failed singer herself. "It almost killed her," says Sparkle (Jordin Sparks), the daughter with real talent, who must bloom at the end if the film is to fulfil its obligations to the compendium of cliché and familiarity on which it is built.

Even Emma's defence of her earlier life -- "You've never, ever, ever seen me lying in my own vomit" -- comes with a combination of sad coincidence and, let's face it, pretty faint praise. It's an unworthy valedictory for Houston, even though she gives it her all.

The movie, the remake of a 1976 film, takes place in Detroit during the violent 1960s, although director Salim Akil gives little indication of that. At one stage, the girls' manager Stix (Derek Luke) -- a stand-in for the Berry Gordy character -- says, "Detroit is dying. All the riots?" It's the film's only indication that there's anything untoward on these slick and musical streets. Otherwise, the turmoil is evoked by a quick shot of Martin Luther King Jr. being interviewed on TV.

The real drama is happening in the Anderson household. Sparkle is the songwriting brains of the outfit -- someone says she could be the next Smokey Robinson -- but the trio sells itself on the sex appeal of its lead singer, named Sister (Carmen Ejogo). Men go into paroxysms of desire just watching her, and other women stalk out of nightclubs when they see their boyfriends drooling.

But Sister is a flighty hottie who makes the mistake of dropping her poor-but-honest boyfriend Levi (Omari Hardwick) and taking up with standup comedian Satin (Mike Epps). You know Satin is evil because he enters rooms in a tuxedo, laughing a "heh-heh-heh" of unearned confidence. His comedy routines are meant to be bad ("Why did the chicken cross the road? Because there was two black guys chasing it with a biscuit") but even at that, they point to a tone-deaf screenplay by Mara Brock Akil and Howard Rosenman. In any event -- spoiler alert, not that you'll need it -- Satin turns out to be less a Richard Pryor and more an Ike Turner.

The third sister, Dolores (Tika Sumpter), wants to get into medical school, which kind of leaves her out of this plot, although she'd fit nicely into some other show-business fantasies. Still, you can't have a Supremes with two women; for one thing, the choreography would suffer and Sparkle comes most alive in the musical numbers when the singers put on their spangly dresses and wave their arms in unison.

The trio, called Sister and the Sisters, trace all the steps -- the amateur show, the big break, the using drugs on the eve of the big break, the loss of the big break, the mother who wants something better for her girls, reconciliation -- and emerge in the end sadder but wiser, albeit in triumphantly low-cut gowns.

The music includes the Curtis Mayfield songs from the first film, spiced up with a few new ones from R. Kelly. The finale, a tune called One Wing, seems to be designed as the breakout hit, and Sparks -- the former American Idol winner who fits all too well into the character's mousey persona -- is being showcased for stardom. That's the sort of thing that happens only in movies like this one.

-- Postmedia News

Other voices

Excerpts from reviews of Sparkle:

It's been engineered as a vehicle for pop starlet Jordin Sparks. But... when the late Whitney Houston isn't upstaging the title character, the bombshell Carmen Ejogo ("The Brave One") is.

-- Roger Moore, McClatchy-Tribune News Service

Energetic, colourful and packed with strong performances and musical numbers good enough to get by, Sparkle beams brightly.

-- Kevin C. Johnson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Better than the original, still a little worn.

-- Matt Pais, RedEye

-- Compiled by Shane Minkin

Movie review

Sparkle

Starring Jordin Sparks, Whitney Houston and Derek Luke

PG

116 minutes

Two stars out of five

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 17, 2012 D4