Through all the adversity and turmoil - compounded most of all by Sister’s drug addiction and abusive relationship as well as by Emma’s stern disapproval of her daughters’ career aspirations, which drives them all away - Akil and her director-husband Salim Akil (last year’s Jumping the Broom) keep a close eye on Sparkle’s constant songwriting in her notepad more than in the original, one feels that she is driven to create and express herself, even if she’s never dared think of herself as a born performer. The hyper-realist Dee wins points by bluntly admitting how she knows that nobody even notices her when her sisters are around - at least until she becomes the first in the neighborhood to get an Afro haircut. Accompanied wherever he goes by an albino factotum, Satin sweeps Sister off her feet but takes her to a darker, dire place.įor her part, the bashful Sparkle receives no end of encouragement and amorous attention from aspiring music manager Stix ( Derek Luke), who sees it as his appointed task in life to make Sparkle realize her potential not only as a songwriter but as a performer for her, Sister was always meant to be the star, with her as backup. One who can is the elegant local operator Satin ( Mike Epps), a character who, in the original, was a standard-issue tough thug but here has been intriguingly reconceived as a smug, condescending comedian whose racial humor plays well with whites but not to fellow blacks. STORY: Hollywood’s Undercover Hitmakers: Salim and Mara Brock AkilĪs the group begins to attract attention, Sister is courted by the earnest but penniless Levi ( Omari Hardwick), who can’t offer her what she really wants.
Emma’s past failure hangs over her daughters like a stationary cloud, and Houston does utter one line that reverberates with inescapable real-life implications: “Was my life not enough of a cautionary tale for you?” One positive alteration right out of the box is changing the mother from what was frankly a boring worn-out domestic to a relatively prosperous middle-class character who never made it as a pop singer but can still bring down the house wailing gospel at church. Like her siblings, appealing but virginal songwriter Sparkle ( Jordin Sparks) and down-to-earth aspiring med student Dee ( Tika Sumpter), Sister lives at home with their mother Emma (Houston) but can’t wait to get out and sees musical success as her best shot.
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Unfortunately, she was gone before the movie was half over.Įvidently recognizing that the earlier script was a connect-the-dots affair with little meat on its bones, screenwriter Mara Brock Akil has not only brought the action forward by 10 years but made well-judged decisions about how to revise and moderately enrich the main characters, most of whom bear the same names as before.Īt first, the “Sister and Her Sisters” singing group, like the film itself, gets by on the heart-stopping sex appeal of the Diana Ross-like lead singer, dynamically played with no shortage of allure by the stunning Carmen Ejogo. Set in Harlem in 1958, the original featured Joel Schumacher‘s first produced screenplay, was directed by ace film editor Sam O’Steen and derived most of its force from Lonette McKee‘s sensational performance as the gorgeous and oldest member of a three-sister singing act aiming for the big time.
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