Pretty Red Dress review – big-hearted music drama dresses to impress | Film
Tright here’s heat, humour, unhappiness and tenderness on this big-hearted function debut from writer-director Dionne Edwards. It’s a film about masculinity that would have been solemn and prescriptive; as a substitute it’s pulsing with humanity, thanks in nice half to large performances from its leads Natey Jones, Alexandra Burke and sensible newcomer Temilola Olatunbosun.
Burke is already referred to as the West Finish performer, recording star and X Issue winner; she performs Candice, a singer about to land the function of a lifetime taking part in Tina Turner in an enormous musical – only a few extra audition rounds to go. However she has issues: teen daughter Kenisha (Olatunbosun) is in hassle at college, and her companion, Travis (Jones) is simply out of jail on licence, his ankle tag giving him a wierd and sinister limp.
Travis was a DJ and music entrepreneur earlier than crime dragged him down: he was going to be the Jay-Z to Candice’s Beyoncé. On the face of it, Travis is a scary powerful man, whose mere presence quietens some lairy boys making an excessive amount of noise on their property. However Travis is not any Ike Turner: he’s romantic and gallant and he buys Candice an inspirationally beautiful pink costume for her audition, paying for it by taking a humiliatingly menial job within the pub owned by his overbearing elder brother. That incredible sparkly pink costume hangs on the again of their bed room door, like a ghost or a fetish, virtually a brand new addition to their household. And Travis, with nothing to do all day however grasp across the flat on his personal, is entranced by the costume’s sensuality, and wonders how that costume would really feel if he tried it on himself.
The inevitable watch-it-through-your-fingers second when Candice comes house unexpectedly early one afternoon is carried off by Jones and Burke with nice aptitude. Travis tries styling it out, claiming he was making ready a wacky panto prank and Burke reveals how Candice is shocked, bewildered, indignant however infinitesimally able to be fooled into believing the reasons with the intention to protect all the things she believed about her companion and their relationship. And there may be extra ache when Kenisha is dragged into the cover-up, and perpetuating the secrets and techniques and lies.
Fairly Crimson Gown is a film with a passing resemblance to Julian Jarrold’s 2005 comedy Kinky Boots with Chiwetel Ejiofor as a drag artist who helps a crisis-hit manufacturing unit make custom-built footwear with bolstered male-weight-bearing excessive heels for performers like him. There’s the truth is the same situation right here: the gorgeous pink costume isn’t made for a male physique like Travis’s and it disastrously rips. Kinky Boots was transformed right into a stage musical and it wouldn’t be stunning to see Fairly Crimson Gown go the identical method with a dozen or so newly written songs, and there’s a tailored star proper there with Burke. However in some methods it could be a disgrace to threat shedding the intimacy and complexity of Fairly Crimson Gown in a theatre model. In any respect occasions, that is an intensely likable movie with a trio of nice performances.
