Starring: Queen Latifah, Dolly Parton, Keke Palmer and Jeremy Jordan
Written and Directed By: Todd Graff
Produced By: Broderick Johnson, Andrew A. Kosove, Michael G. Nathanson and Katherine Paura
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: Approximately 117 minutes
Website: warnerbros.com/us/joyfulnoise
Budget: N/A
Genre: Comedy, Musical
Release Date: January 13, 2012
One of the things that I think frustrates people about movie reviews is how circumspect they can be. As critics, we approach a movie with an eye toward analysis and dissection: What exactly is going on here? What works, and what doesn’t? How does a movie use the tools at its disposal, and is it successful in using those tools? How does this movie appeal to my tastes, and how might it appeal to other tastes? These are the questions we are conditioned to ask ourselves to approach something with what is hopefully a keen critical eye.
However, most readers of reviews tend to only have one question: Is the movie any good or not? This frustrates reviewers, as it’s rarely possible to reduce the complex experience of a movie to an objective truth. Joyful Noise is a good example of that.
Joyful Noise stars Queen Latifah (of Chicago) and Dolly Parton (of being Dolly Parton) as rivals on the church choir in a small Georgia town. After the sudden death of her husband (Kris Kristofferson, in what amounts to a cameo), Parton, as flamboyant widow G.G., fully expects to take her husband’s old spot as choirmaster. When the pastor instead gives the job to Queen’s Vi Rose, G.G. does not take the snub lightly. Complicating the women’s feud is the arrival of G.G.’s bad-boy teenage grandson, Randy (Jeremy Jordan), who blows into town with a chip on his shoulder and unrequited crush on Vi Rose’s daughter, Olivia (Keke Palmer of “True Jackson, VP”). Vi Rose, overprotective and intent on keeping Olivia’s focus on the choir, is against the match, which keeps her and G.G. even further at odds. The choir has a chance to beat their rivals at regionals (as on “Glee,” “regionals” is some sort of nebulously defined Holy Grail of singing competitions), and it just so happens Randy has some radical new ideas that could take the choir out of Georgia to regionals and beyond.
Will the choir make it past regionals? Will Vi Rose and G.G. put their differences behind them for the good of their church? Will Randy and Olivia be allowed to be together? Will pop songs like “Man in the Mirror” and “Maybe I’m Amazed” be redone, Sister Act-style, to be vaguely about God and stuff and lip-synched to an overproduced recording dub? The answer to all of the above is yes, of course. Is this a good movie? No, no it is not.
Attempting to do for gospel choir what “Glee” has done for high school glee clubs, Joyful Noise takes a series of elaborately staged gospel numbers and strings them along a wafer-thin plot that manages to incorporate an anemic “Romeo and Juliet” riff – Jordan’s Randy is the least threatening “bad boy” since Fonzie – and a subplot in which a man suffers a fatal post-coital heart attack. Latifah vacillates between put-upon mom (she also takes care of her Asperger’s-afflicted son) and stern zealot, while Parton, who I’d unironically call a national treasure, has dialogue that’s composed of at least 60 percent “country wisdom” and, after multiple plastic surgeries, looks about as well-preserved as Lenin: An otherwise sweet fantasy sequence in which G.G. imagines a duet with her late husband is marred by her distracting facelift and collagen injections.
It’s not a good movie. This, however, doesn’t matter. Back up three paragraphs and re-read that summary. If that sounded appealing to you at all, this movie is for you. It’s not without redemptive features; writer/director Todd Graff does give the musical numbers appropriate energy and grandeur, and the movie should appeal to any number of groups and interests (Christians, Southerners, gospel music) that are underrepresented in mainstream cinema. It’s hard to completely condemn something as relentlessly earnest as Joyful Noise, which is too brisk and competently made to be completely without merit, but those with movie reviewer-thick hides of cynicism will be unable to see it as little more than a Hallmark Channel Original Movie that somehow got a theatrical release.
Yes, Joyful Noise is a bad movie. But don’t let that stop you if you were already inclined to go see this movie, because you will probably greatly enjoy it. Joyful Noise is not here to reinvent the wheel, just present a world where all problems can be solved with communication, teamwork and a little bit of Jesus. It does a good job preaching to the faithful, but it’s far too flawed to win any but the most willing of converts.
1.5 Stars (out of 5)
