September 21, 2001

By Veronica Mixon

Pop music star, Mariah Carey will probably be devastated when she reads some of the critical reviews of her feature film debut, Glitter. The story of a young girl's rise to stardom is a shoddy production of clichés and poor direction.

Glitter begins with a child singer, Billie Frank (Isabel Gomes) performing with her mother, Lillian (Valarie Pettiford). Unfortunately, Lillian is an alcoholic who routinely blackmails the child's white father and burns the house down when she falls asleep while smoking. Eventually, Billie is placed in an orphanage. As an adult, Billie (Carey) dances at local clubs and sings backup with her best friends played by Da Brat and Tia Texada. She attracts the attention of a small time promoter, Timothy Walker (Terrence Howard), who utilizes her voice to promote another performer who can't sing.

One night after hear Billie sing, famous DJ Julian Dice (Max Beesley) steals her away from Timothy and promises to buy out her contract. That never happens and as Billie's career takes off, Timothy's demands become a problem. Furthermore, her popularity and increased exposure not only causes a riff between Billie and her friends but also with Dice who has his own personal ambitions.

Glitter is a typical rise to stardom story but director, Vondie Curtis Hall further reduces the material to swill with his poor creative decisions. His debut film, Gridlock'd which starred Tupac Shakur, Tim Roth and Thandie Newton was fast-paced, gritty, and stylistically sharp. Glitter is dreadful with too many aerial shots of the swaying skyline, too many cutaway shots like those used on television, bad lighting and awful dialog. Clearly, Mariah Carey is an inexperienced actress but under Hall's direction, she merely smirks every time she's called upon to show any emotion. Furthermore, her costumes are terrible especially when she tries to look soft and feminine.

While Terrence Howard gives a decent performance in a role that he's played before - the villain in "Big Momma's House" and the slick dude in "Best Man" - he's largely wasted. Newcomer Max Beesley is fine as Carey's love interest but Howard would have been a better candidate. Unfortunately, Mariah Carey, who recently suffered a mental breakdown, joins the ranks of miscast pop stars like Madonna in "Shanghai Surprise" and Janet Jackson in "Poetic Justice." Their debut films were diasters, too. Only Whitney Houston, whose first film was the mega-hit, "The Bodyguard," succeeded in her transition to movie star after the first film. Despite her wooden performance in that film, she became a better actress with practice. All of this simply means, when Mariah Carey recovers from her current mental problems, she can succeed if she studies acting, choose to work with talented people, pick suitable projects and forget that she ever appeared in Glitter.

A friend of mine, who is a black male critic, has blasted the film as just another portrayal of a violent, ignorant black man but I think any display of adolescent emotional life is important and valiant - especially when you consider the state of teen movies today. I understand his feelings but I still recommend this film because I think it's an intriguing adaptation.