Arthur Chappell Create Your Badge film review Burlesque >
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<title>Film review Burlesque – with Cher and Christina Aguilera
Film review Burlesque (2010).
As
a long serving supporter of the burlesque cabaret scene in Britain, having met
several performers and performing poetry in shows featuring some burlesque
dancers, I was keen to see this film, though dreading that it might not prove
to be very good. The French film ON TOUR, which
came out at the same time, is much better in depicting burlesque.
Though
not 100% dreadful, it isn’t very good at all.Aguilera is very good in her role, and Stanley Tucci, as Sean, the
dresser, is superbly dry and laconic – clearly the best actor on screen.
Now
the bad points. The plot is a by the numbers set of standard musical clichés –
1/. Waitress dreams of a singing / dancing career and gets one.2/. Nightclub on the brink of bankrupts
finds financial and creative salvation through its star performers.3/. Bitchy jealous down on her luck performer
tries to ruin the new girl for a time but grows to like her, etc. 4/. Leading
lady gets torn between two men, one of who is scum, but eventually chooses the
right man to love.
The
plots are simple enough but overburden the film so much as to leave little room
for what counts in a musical, namely songs and dance routines. Much of the
second half of the film has no songs, bar for the big production closing
routine. Too much time is taken up tying off the plot threads, and none are
handled too excitingly.
Cher’s
performance is fine though she clearly looks too old for the routine. Her
plastic surgery leaves much of her face as rigid as stone, though her eyes and
mouth seem to be trying to flex. It creates a rather disturbing look, and her
voice sounds very nasal. Her main song, Welcome to Burlesque is a genuine
highlight of the film.Other new songs
are not very memorable.
Now
the big problems. 1/. Despite the title of the film, Cher’s club being called
‘The Burlesque Lounge’, three songs referring directly to burlesque in the
lyrics, and the final number featuring the dancing girls sprawling over a giant
neon sign reading ‘BURLESQUE’ there is very little burlesque in the film at
all.
Burlesque
in the modern sense is about strip tease with the emphasise on tease, as flesh
is often suggested rather than revealed, with performers peeling down to
tassels and panties, with lots of bump and grind. Only a fan dance in the
middle of the film achieves anything like this. Most of the stage shows numbers
are cabaret songs with girls in raunchy Las Vegas and Bob Fosse style cabaret
outfits.A big key to this is the
film’s desperate effort to look like Fosse’s Cabaret, but that film had
political edge and dark satire. Burlesque is a glorified pop video. Aguilera
was in a video promo song version of Lady Marmalade in the excellent Moulin
Rouge, and this film looks a pale imitation of that during many of her dances.
By
far the biggest flaw for me is the continuity crisis. Most films have minor
continuity errors. Burlesque has a big one running like a fault line right
through the central plot.The central
premise is that Aguilera’s character Ali, feels held back by having to lip sync
with the dancers to backing tracks, as the club’s audience likes to watch them
dance and mime to songs like Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell’s Diamonds Are A
Girl’s Best Friend. We even see the backing track discs being inserted into a
CD player by the DJ.
So
what’s wrong with that you ask? Answer – the live house band. The cameras and
songs frequently point to the live musicians the dancers perform to.
This
situation is made worse rather than better when Ali finally gets to sing.Though it’s clearly Aguilera pouring her
soul into the songs, the soundtrack is not recorded live but dubbed on, causing
her to obviously look like she’s lip synch miming to her own song. It’s like
watching Top Of The Pops in 1978. The premise of the film is its focus on live
singing but we get none, despite the film’s cast being dominated by major
league singers.
Another
flaw among many is the bitchy Nikki, played by Kristen Bell, sabotaging stage
performances, drunkenly accusing the club owner’s ex-husband of having slept
with her the night after his marriage to Cher, getting forgiven and keeping her
job no matter how hateful she gets.
A
film saturated in weak songs, continuity issues, a failure to understand or
show what Burlesque involves and a mixed bag range of acting talents. Not to
mention its director’s efforts to be the new Bob Fosse.This is a poor film, not classically bad to
the point of being entertaining like the cult classic atrocity Showgirls – this
is just mediocre.I so wish it had been
better.
