Movie Review: "The Sapphires"

"The Sapphires": B+.  One of the keys to success for any movie about a small group of people -- be they singers, soldiers, cowboys, roommates or office co-workers -- is that the story must develop the characters at least to the point where each is not merely a support player or a cardboard one-dimensional stereotype.  Two old successful films about music which immediately come to mind as good examples are the Tom Hanks movie from 1996, That Thing You Do, involving a fictitious band comprised of friends from Erie, PA, and A Hard Day's Night (1964) featuring the Beatles, four mop tops you may have heard of from Liverpool.  The Sapphires only modestly succeeds in that regard, but it certainly has other saving graces which render it an enjoyable interlude from a busy week.  For one, it has the best sound track of any movie since 1983's The Big Chill.  (Okay, it's pretty tough to top the music from Les Mis (2012), but is that really comparing apples to apples?)

The Sapphires are a singing group comprised of four sisters originally from an Australian Aboriginal reservation.  I write "originally" because one of the four, Kay (Shari Sebbens), has been kidnapped from her home and brought to the city as a young girl, to be raised by a white family of means.  The movie viewers are advised before the opening credits that this practice was allowed under Australian law in the last century, the unforgivable rationale being that the child's welfare was enhanced by such a practice.  Those youngsters, who like Kay were targeted because of their comparatively fair-toned skin, are collectively referred to as the "lost generation."  We find out a little later in a flashback that the two young girls we saw running through the fields and jumping barbed wire fences were Kay and her older sister Gail (Deborah Mailman), attempting to escape the clutches of the men who succeeded in taking Kay to the city.

The story moves quickly.  In the first act, Gail and Cynthia (Miranda Tapsell) are preparing to head into town to compete in a talent show venued in a theater owned by a bigoted proprietor, who has hired whiskey swilling and homeless David Lovelace (Chris O'Dowd) to host the pageant and provide musical accompanyment on keyboards.  Half-way through their song, youngest sister Julie (Jessica Mauboy), who had been told by her mother and Gail to stay home, crashes the party and turns the duo into a trio.  Even before Julie chimed in the girls were clearly the best act in the show; Julie is the icing on the cake.  Although the contest is rigged, favoring the inferior white competition, the girls don't remain losers for long.  Notwithstanding his mildly inebriated condition, David is lucid enough to recognize the three sisters as the real thing, bona fide talent, and before you know it he has become their manager and has used his connections to land his charges a gig in Viet Nam entertaining US troops.

A quick pace usually serves a comedy well, and this movie, although not intended as a knee-slapper, is fairly labeled in that genre.  However, some of the scenes which one might expect to be developed a little more are very brief.  For example, all it takes for Gail and Cynthia to convince Kay she should drop her lavish surroundings and her white bread friends to join them in war-torn Viet Nam is a one minute stare down outside a Tupperware party.  When David gets up the gumption to break the news to Gail that she has the weakest voice among the quartet, and should therefore surrender lead singer duties to Julie, Gail needs only a few seconds to digest the news and accede.  The attractions between David and Gail and between Kay and a GI seem too hurried and unlikely, reminding me of some old Elvis movies in which he immediately falls for every girl who looks at him, and vice versa.

In spite of its shortcomings, this is a feel good, spirited and upbeat movie.  In addition to the superb music, the casting of O'Dowd  as David is a home run.  I loved his performance.  His sad sack countenance and Irish brogue mesh perfectly with the funny lines he delivers.  The role calls for an actor who can turn from being an irresponsible mess who sleeps in his car to a well-connected judge of talent.  At first we wonder how four intelligent women can place their personal safety amidst war zone fighting into the hands of a ne'er do well like David.  But the more responsibility he has on his plate, the more he rises to the occasion.  He is helping the "girls" start a career, and in turn, their relationship enables him to get his life together.  David is also given one of the best lines in the movie.  He must convince the performers to abandon the country & western songs they've grown up singing in favor of the soul music which their military audience prefers.  In comparing the difference between C & W and soul, David explains that both country music and soul are about loss, but in the former "they've given up and they are just all wining about it.  In soul music they are struggling to get it back.  They haven't given up."

One public service announcement.  I spent the first fifteen minutes of the movie (following the opening credits) thinking that Gail was the mother, instead of the oldest sister.  It turns out that maybe my perception wasn't so far off base.  According to the bios of the four Australian actresses who play the sisters, Deborah Mailman (Gail) is twelve years older "in real life" than the next oldest of the remaining three.  Don't be fooled like I was.