Saturday 24 November 2001

Diva's film debut slated

Music diva Mariah Carey makes her British film debut this weekend in a rags to riches love story set against the backdrop of the New York club scene. However, film critics in the US and UK have already slated the movie with the majority describing it as a hodgepodge of clichés and bad acting that are sure to generate unintentional laughs.

The film centres on Billie Frank, a child taken in by social services because her mother does not earn enough in her singing career to support her family. But, naturally, our Billie's determined that where her mother failed, she'll succeed owing to a good voice and the help of bad-boy club DJ Julian Dice, played by British actor Max Beesley.

Billie soon finds herself a huge star in the New York club world, but as her career rockets and Dice's declines, their relationship brings even more stress to Billie on her way to superstardom.

Carey wrote all the songs her character performs, and several of the other pieces of music featured in the movie. She insisted on heavy security during the making of the film in order that no one could pirate the soundtrack. The crew only played tiny clips and compilations of the tracks rather than the finished versions. And all the film's extras were banned from bringing any kind of electronic equipment on to the set.

Charlie Gant of Heat magazine described Glitter as "a big mess" and "big pile of clichés" in which "Mariah simpers through the film thinking that she's cute". And in the US, critics were far more blunt. "An unintentionally hilarious compendium of time-tested cinematic clichés that illustrates the chasm between hopeful imitation and successful duplication," according to the New York Times' Lawrence Van Gelder.

Meanwhile, LA-based newspaper film reviewer Gregory Weinkauf said: "It's just an intentional hoot, sabotaged by clunky direction, a screenplay so awful it feels as though there are no vowels, and Carey's inability to recite a line of it." Rather more pointedly, US-based TV magazine critic Steve Simels said Glitter was a "butt-numbing exercise in tedium". And on Cranky Critic's website - www.crankycritic.com - reviewer Chuck Schwartz said: "There is good. There is bad. There is worse and terrible and pathetic and painful. Then there is Glitter."

(ITV.com)



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