Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls (2006) - Supporting Actress Sundays - Special Wednesday Edition

Few showbiz tropes thrill as reliably as the "star is born" narrative, with set-pieces so beyond cliché that it's a wonder they still fly at all. But, boy howdy, do they ever... From the national casting search for the perfect girl...to the "overnight" success of a trouper from the trenches...to the big second shot for the sweet kid who seemed to have missed out on her first chance at stardom...to the novice performer finding it within themselves to offer the showstopping, starmaking performance of a lifetime. Any one of these bits is usually enough to sucker StinkyLulu all on its own, but rarely do all these narrative threads weave so powerfully through a single performance as they do for...

...Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls (2006).

approximately 59 minutes and 51 seconds on-screen
30 scenes
roughly 46% of film's total screen time

Jennifer Hudson's casting in the pivotal role of Effie seemed to StinkyLulu at once totally right and incredibly risky. The curvy cast-aside American Idol belter with pipes of steel who survived cruel Cowell cracks about her weight? Who better for the part of Effie, whose big voice, big body and bigger personality must be cast aside to allow the starry Dreams of others to rise? Hadn't Jennifer Hudson in some ways already lived the part? And hadn't Jennifer Hudson actually been singing Effie's anthem since the girl was like 10 years old? The choice seemed almost too perfect.

Almost. It's a surprisingly tricky acting task to make such a declamatory character as Effie work on screen. Effie is — to a fault — impetuous and direct. In her music and her dialogue, she's brash and sassy, unburdened with much in the way of humility or subtlety until it’s almost too late. Effie's songs are roof-raising epics, tent-poles for the emotional narrative of the entire piece, while the bulk of her character development (from naïve arrogance to abject humiliation to soulful redemption) happens mostly at the edges of scenes or off-stage entirely. But, while the songs are some of the best showcases for singer-actors written in the last few decades, the task of stringing those gems together comprises the work of characterization for Effie, and StinkyLulu wondered at the outset whether an inexperienced actor (like Hudson) could maneuver Effie's "in betweens" with the same clarity and passion as her "center stages." Would Hudson — in her acting debut — be able to craft the necessary emotional architecture to bridge Effie's big moments?

Upon first screening Dreamgirls, all of StinkyLulu's greatest hopes and biggest fears were realized in Jennifer Hudson's Effie. When at center stage, Hudson's Effie brings down the house again and again and again (the late afternoon ABQ audience of StinkyLulu's first screening burst into spontaneous applause for Hudson's Effie no fewer than three times) and yet...in the in-betweens? Hudson's Effie becomes a distressingly incomplete performance. Within the focal moments of the narrative and score, Hudson's Effie is captivating and often thrilling. In the in-betweens, it's mostly Hudson just standing there or awkwardly shoopadooping while wearing Effie's costume. It's a strangely discordant thing: Hudson's performance contributes some of the year's best screen moments while punctuating most of them with some of the most shockingly flat-footed acting StinkyLulu's seen in some time.

And for Lulu, the gaps in Hudson's Effie underscore one of the essential elements of actressing at the edges: working your character-ass off whether the camera's "on" you or not. Such actressing at the edges — little throwaway bits that sculpt the character's contours even (or especially) when such details are not the focus of the scene — are sadly absent in Hudson's performance. Such gaps become most evident when Hudson's Effie sings back-up and, here, the difference between stealing focus and being legibly "in character" becomes painfully clear. Hudson's Effie knows how to grab attention, but Hudson fails to convey Effie's discomfort, compromise and fury at being "put in back," especially when she's actually performing back-up.

As a quick example, consider Hudson's clarity in the recording studio scene for "Heavy" and compare it to her muddiness moments later when walking off the set during filming of the same song for tv. When she's got her own vocal line, Hudson shakes the foundation; when she must convey character in the midst or at the edges of other action, Hudson hits her marks but the character of Effie is less than legible. Compare this, then, to the luminous Sharon Leal, in a moment of a similar sort right after Jimmy (Eddie Murphy) has burned all his bridges and Lorell (Anika Noni Rose) has finally broken their relationship. As Lorell rushes to her position on stage, Leal's Michelle gives her friend a simple look of reassurance and strength as she also strikes a pose wearing her best glamor-back-up-girl smile — neither distracting nor disrupting the scene, but definitely illuminating Leal's characterization of the thankless role of Michelle. Hudson's performance hits Effie's heights with palpable power, but it's in these — the essential in-betweens of actressing at the edges — that Hudson's Effie stumbles and, not infrequently, falls.

But please, lovely reader, do not misunderstand: Jennifer Hudson's nomination is certainly worthy and, if Miss Hudson takes home the trophy as she's perhaps likely to, StinkyLulu will not be blogging and moaning about the injustice of it all. Indeed, StinkyLulu is of two minds about whether Jennifer Hudson's performance warrants this year's Supporting Actress prize. On the one hand, Hudson's Effie provided a handful of the year's most thrilling actressexual pleasures. On the other, it does pain Lu (and not a little bit) to have such a singularly starmaking performance just skip over the actressing at the edges that brings Lulu to this category with such single-minded devotion. Because, after all, Lulu does love it when the girls "put in back" seize their chance to shine without the benefit of a spotlight...

Previously:
Abigail Breslin in Little Miss Sunshine