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Sparkle movie stix1/9/2024 Whitney Houston died at the age of 48 a few months after shooting wrapped on Sparkle, and unsurprisingly, her presence in the film has dominated the advance press. As Sister begins to spin out of control before the group can make good on their promise, Sparkle is torn between her disapproving mother, her love for Stix, and her desire to make the most of her talent. When Sister throws off her caring but cash-strapped boyfriend Levi (Omari Hardwick) in favor of an arrogant yet wealthy standup comic named Satin (Mike Epps), she gets a taste of the show-business high life that fuels her most self-destructive impulses. Emma was a singer in her youth, but ended up with some bad habits and a broken heart for her troubles, and now she’s a stern, churchgoing woman who refuses to let her children get involved in secular music. However, the siblings need to keep their rising fame a secret from their mother. Dolores is persuaded to join so she can raise money for college, and Sister and the Sisters begin making a name for themselves on the Detroit music scene. After Sister makes a splash at a nightclub’s talent show with a number Sparkle wrote, they’re approached by Stix (Derek Luke), an aspiring manager who’s certain Sparkle and Sister could be the core of a successful girl group: Sister has the star quality, and Sparkle has the songs. And Sparkle (Jordin Sparks) is the youngest and the most idealistic, but struggles with confidence she’s a gifted singer and songwriter, but lacks the courage to perform her work in public. Middle sister Dolores (Tika Sumpter) is smart and practical, and dreams of becoming a doctor. Eldest sibling Sister (Carmen Ejogo) is talented, rebellious, and sexy, but her ambitions are vague at best. At any rate, the story follows three sisters who share a home with their mother Emma (Whitney Houston) in the Motor City. on the Mike Douglas Show is seen, and the characters dance to Sly and the Family Stone’s mid-1968 single “Sing a Simple Song” - and all of this occurs within the narrative space of a few days. The cars and clothes suggest 1965 or 1966, a 1967 interview of Martin Luther King Jr. Sparkle is set in Detroit at some vague point in the mid-to-late-’60s. The film may not have anything new to add, but director Salim Akil and a strong and engaging cast fill it with enough energy and enthusiasm to make it click. Sparkle is a soap opera at heart, and as such, the key to its success isn’t what it has to say, but how it says it. But practically everyone has seen or heard a tale like this before - Sparkle deals with dreams of show-business glory and the difficult bonds of family, and between these two tropes, the movie manages to cover an impressive range of cliches that have been staples in cinema and television for generations. Some folks may remember the original 1976 version of the film, while others might be reminded of Dreamgirls, which tells a story with more than a few points of similarity. Sparkle will probably seem familiar to most first-time viewers for a number of reasons.
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