#57 Glitter (by special guest viewer Jo)

Firstly, a confession, I wanted to like Glitter, I REALLY did.

It’s so obviously a Mariah vanity project, yet I was still expecting (hoping for) a cross between Flashdance and Coyote Ugly. The poor girl with unsavoury background shakes off childhood heartache and orphanage education to become and star and find a man. Come on, the movie is called Glitter, this should be a camp feel-good extravaganza. I mean it’s likely Mariah is going to sing a lot and potentially ruin it, but who knew she would only sing one song, over and, over and over again throughout?

It’s starts off with a young Billie (Mariah) joining her struggling musical artiste mother on stage, in what looks like a 1920s jazz bar. Although we can only assume it’s actually meant to be the 70s, shame no one let the costume department know. In fact the only consistent theme throughout this movie is the inconsistency of which decade it is supposedly set it. Anyway, the first gig goes well, the mother dumps her in an orphanage soon after.

Skip forward to the 80s, or 90s, or 60s, who even knows, certainly not the costume department. Billie’s outfits skip from early 2000s Destiny’s Child, you know the days when Beyonce‘s mum was out the back running them up on a sewing machine out of chiffon and bacofoil, to TLC circa the 90s and back again. The outfits never quite manage to appear in anyway 80s. It’s distracting, but then I suspect that is a good thing.

Billie is now living with two friends in the Big Apple and whilst wearing outfits from the future, they form a girl band, but are soon relegated to backing singers. Billie doesn’t’ really seem to mind this until Kelly and Michelle (Yes, I am using the names of past Destiny’s Child members because I can’t remember the character’s names) point out that she is wasting her mothers gift, which is apparently her voice. 

Billie seems in more of a hurry to bag a man, which she does with customary ease. In rolls Dice (Max Beesley, no I don’t know why he is in this film either). There is at some point a sex scene, if you could call it that. I’ve witnessed more chemistry in the waiting room for a smear test.

Having snared herself a hapless international superstar DJ boyfriend, she then decides she really does want to be a star. In Glitterland that seems to mean singing the same song, over and over again until somebody finally caves and agrees to let her sing at Madison Square Gardens.  Oh, and she absolutely must track down her long lost mother.

With the Madison Square Garden’s gig somehow, on the back on one single, firmly in the bag, she can of course ditch the boyfriend. One staged limo argument later Dice is dust. Freshly dumped, the hapless international superstar DJ ex-boyfriend manages to get himself shot in the most unconvincing music turf war since 50 Cent and Ja Rule. Now Dice really is dust.

Despite being so upset about her missing mother she almost sang a different song at one point, Billie manages to walk straight past her in the street, leaving her there, homeless crack-addled and forgotten. This might be as likeable as Mariah’s character ever gets.

Un-phased by her murdered ex-boyfriend and homeless mother, the show at Madison Square Garden’s must go on. At least I think she goes through with the show, I have started trying to scratch my own eyeballs with popcorn kernels at this point.

Life goal unlocked, she goes back to the quest for her mother. Naturally Billie’s mother, having seemingly completed the worlds fastest and most successful rehabilitation program is now sober and living in a big house in the country.  They hug. The film ends. Thank fuck.