In the montage that traces Rainbow’s rise from car dealership to fledgling record label, Condon captures the blushing bride excitement of young black folks bursting out of the Civil Rights era with a crazy dream, money cobbled together from myriad hustles and the bravery that comes from having absolutely nothing to lose. Right on. This is the romance of wage slavery emancipation most of ’ working stiff target audience pursues in real life, with their side hustles and off-the-books home businesses.
(In one scene which confirmed that the audience I was sitting in was falling madly in love with the movie, Taylor conscripts a young typist from a crowd of applicants outside the Rainbow office, but when he notices her overlong manicured fingernails, he starts to turn her away. She instantly snaps off the fake nails and bounces on into the office. The applause and laughter that erupted from the audience at that moment was pure, grateful recognition.
We all been there, sister.) Condon realizes that the performances are his best hope of drawing out such resonance and overcoming (or even slightly subverting) the stage musical’s tidy resolution. It hardly matters that the central characters are so wildly inconsistent in motivation, they seem to have split personalities.
(Curtis goes from slick, transparent manager-pimp to ingenious grassroots visionary to Ike/Suge/Papa Joe oppressor; Eddie Murphy’s Jackie Wilson-styled James “Thunder” Early similarly oscillates between cartoon ladies man in curly conk and glitter vests and supersensitive cokehead Marvin Gaye in soul brother denim jacket.) Whatever emotion or position the characters happen to be pushing at a given moment, Condon makes them hurl it out from the diaphragm and the heart. So even though Curtis ultimately comes off as a manipulative, womanizing hustler, somewhere in there we get a just as convincing glimpse of his human, even heroic, side -- his ambition to conquer markets and pop culture terrain outside the chitlin’ circuit; his obsessive love of Deena as a regal personification of “Black is Beautiful.
” Likewise, although generally there isn’t much chemistry between any two characters in the film, the communal love overflowing in the ensemble number “Family” is convincing enough to induce a crying jag. It helps that Condon tops it off with the loveliest, least saccharine group hug in cinema history. Of course, most folks are rushing to for two reasons: To find out if Jennifer Hudson’s rendition of “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” really stacks up to Jennifer Holliday’s iconic version; and to see just how quickly her presence and singing voice blow Beyonce off the screen.
After a few robotic performances in a forgettable MTV “Hip Hopera” and an Austin Powers flick, she actually showed growth and promise in 2003’s In the montage that traces Rainbow’s rise from car dealership to fledgling record label, Condon captures the blushing bride excitement of young black folks bursting out of the Civil Rights era with a crazy dream, money cobbled together from myriad hustles and the bravery that comes from having absolutely nothing to lose.
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