Joyful Noise Hits Too Many Sour Notes
In the small town of Pacashau, Georgia, the Divinity Church Choir is the song the struggling inhabitants of the berg love to sing in order to raise their spirits and keep them from dwelling on the economic hardships threatening their livelihoods. But when longtime director Bernard Sparrow (Kris Kristofferson) dies of a heart attack and the church council chooses Vi Rose Hill (Queen Latifah) instead of his vivacious and outspoken widow G.G. (Dolly Parton) to lead it, their feud threatens to derail things as the group heads to the Joyful Noise competition in Los Angeles.
Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah in Joyful Noise © Warner Bros
Complicating things is the arrival of G.G.’s rebellious grandson Randy (Jeremy Jordan), a young, musically-inclined teen who is immediately smitten with Vi’s sexy and talented 16-year-old daughter Olivia (Keke Palmer). This volatile mix has the potential to destroy the choir and keep them out of Nationals, derailing the hopes of the entire town as they breathlessly pray for the group’s success.
I will say I wasn’t looking forward to Joyful Noise. While I did enjoy writer/director Todd Graff’s previous efforts Camp and Bandslam, the trailers for this one had me holding my noise in revulsion, the whole thing looking more like a second-rate Sister Act meets “Glee” meets Tyler Perry knockoff I didn’t want even a minute part of.
In retrospect this reaction to a preview was both unkind and not entirely proper on my part, and I definitely know better than to let my preconceptions (sometimes you can’t help but have them) color my reactions to a finished picture. Considering that Graff’s third effort isn’t half-bad I should probably feel better about this than I probably should. Granted, considering that the film is also half-terrible I’m sure I’ll get over any mixed feelings I might have. The movie isn’t awful but it certainly isn’t good, either, instead operating in a frustrating middle ground that left me unhappily pondering what potentially could have been.
Much like Bandslam, Joyful Noise is smarter and has more on its mind than its thinly familiar premise alludes to. Graff wants to talk about what is going on in the smaller corners of the country, wants to tackle the larger issues regarding economic disparities and how the tiniest glories have the potential to fuel hope within an entire community. More than that, Vi Rose and G.G. are far more complicated people with more intricate lives than you’d ever have believed going in, making their respective stories more interesting than they arguably had any right to be.
At the same time, Graff doesn’t entirely avoid cliché, doesn’t go out of his way to avoid stereotypes and embraces far more platitudes than is remotely satisfactory. The romance between Olivia and Randy is so saccharine I think it gave me tooth decay, while a secondary one revolving around the grandson and Vi’s Aspergers afflicted younger son for all its good intentions borders on detestable. Side stories concerning various members of the choir tread far too robustly into Tyler Perry territory, aspects of them so smarmy and schmaltzy there were times I wanted to pound my head up against a granite wall.
I will say the final concert is pretty remarkable, and while it offers up zero in the way of surprise it’s so dynamically staged and sung it’s easy to forgive the Rocky aspects of what is taking place. Graff doesn’t over-edit, doesn’t skewer the image so that what is going on becomes nothing more than a visual blur. There’s an old school 1930’s verisimilitude that’s remarkably endearing, and while very few will probably notice those that do will find themselves a wee bit pleased.
Yet I have a decided love-hate relationship with Joyful Noise. I’m unhappy that Graff goes for the easy tears, that he stoops to setting up melodramatic moments between a lonely wife and her estranged Army officer husband in order to try and make the audience cry. While the music is incredible, while everyone involved can sing, not all of them can act (particularly Jordan – he’s borderline terrible), and the differences between Latifah, who throws her all into the proceedings, Parton, who could play this sort of homespun darling in her sleep, and all the rest is exasperating. When the movie sings it hits notes bordering on the divine; sadly, it just doesn’t hit enough of them to make the finished flick nothing more than a prayer for greatness frustratingly left unanswered.
- Review reprinted courtesy of the SGN in Seattle
Film Rating: êê1/2 (out of 4)
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