I never, ever again wish to be told I need more faith from a ten-year-old. A holy man? Sure. A random adult? Maybe. Even a college student is possible, but never again should I or anyone else have to listen to the words of prepubescent children singing about God. Here’s the deal — if you can’t name more than one religion, you aren’t allowed to dictate squat re: God. When I see an adorable pre-teen singing about faith, I see not a child, but a tool not unlike a set of pliers or a screwdriver … a simple tool used by adults to manipulate public opinion. And a cheap tool at that.
Joyful Noise has a lot of singing. Most of it is good. Clearly, the producers correctly identified the strong points they had to offer – singing, singing, and maybe a little singing with some arranging thrown in. The movie centers on a church choir attempting to bring some pride to a broken Georgia town by winning a National Singing Competition. When the producers attempted to write the story around the singing? Well, that’s when Joyful Noise doesn’t work. And there’s a lot of “story” here.
The two major problems with the film are: 1) the fact that nobody had the balls to create a real life bad guy, so controversy always starts from misunderstood best intentions. This is best represented by Randy (Jeremy Jordan) who plays Dolly Parton’s “bad seed” nephew. Bad Seed here, luckily, has a voice and temperament, lo and behold, for singing God’s praises. And he’s just about as badass as Hannah Montana. I love how Joyful threw in his “New York City!” background as if to prove to the audience he shoulders with the Devil. 2) This is Dolly Parton’s and Queen Latifah’s show, so they both dictate where the story takes us. Neither has an especially interesting POV and both require at least five minutes of “alone with the camera” singing time.
And when the leads aren’t mugging and the seconds aren’t inventing controversy, everybody is talking about faith. Ugh. This is exactly the film Courageous wanted to be, which, unfortunately, should tell you exactly how bad Courageous was. To be fair, Godchat wasn’t an oppressive force in Joyful Noise, it was just sort of omnipresent, like the Almighty Herself. If your life is about exalting your Christian deity in the form of song, well, this could be what you need to see.
Personally, I never need to hear the word “regionals” again in my lifetime.
Dolly Parton currently looks like a magazine collage:
When Todd Graff directs choreography in Act II, I swear Dolly simply rotates right and left just like an animatronic doll. Every time I saw it, I thought, ”she’s ‘more machine than (wo)man, twisted and evil.’ “ So there you have it, Joyful Noise: Twisted and Evil.
Rated PG-13, 118 Minutes
D: Todd Graff
W: Todd Graff
Genre: Preaching from the choir
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: “Why didn’t they make a Sister Act III?”
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: “Oh God, not another Sister Act.”
