Glitter Movie Recap (2001)

 


In September 2001, Glitter movie was released. But so many things were messy before this movie even began. One big positive, Mariah is finally free from Columbia and the control of Tommy Mottola. She signed a massive contract with Virgin Records. But then things went south. For one, there was questions about her mental health after she showed up to TRL uninvited, giving out ice cream promoting Glitter and stripping down to a more revealing outfit. Shortly after, Mariah was hospitalized due to exhaustion and was placed under hospital care for two weeks. The movie and soundtrack were pushed back as a result. The movie was released shortly after the 9/11 attack. The movie/soundtrack was a critical and commercial bomb because no one really wanted to do fun things after that (ask Willa Ford). Mariah became a Razzie award winning actress shortly after. Years later, the soundtrack and movie got a second life when the #JusticeforGlitter campaign was trending as fans realized that that era was misunderstood. Was it misunderstood or was it justified, stay tuned to find out.

Glitter Movie Recap

Let me just say this, aint it funny Columbia Pictures distributed this internationally when Mariah left Columbia Records. I don’t know if they have any affiliations with each other just something that I pointed out. On to the film. We are introduced to Lilian Frank, she is a nightclub singer struggling to hold it down. Bout to lose her job, she tries to pull into the audience heartstrings by bringing her daughter onstage Billie Frank. Despite a decent effort, Lily loses her job.  After this, the girls try to visit Billie’s father but he wants nothing to do with either one of them. One night, Lily falls asleep with cigarette in hand and the house gets caught on fire. Billie is sent to live in a group home. At the group home she meets two girls Louise and Roxanne and they quickly befriend Billie.

Fast forward to 1983, Billie is now in a dancer at a night club and get spotted by Timothy Walker . He is a producer working with artist Sylk and he’s in search of background singers. Billie turned it down but after Roxanne & Louise beg her do it in order to get an easy payday, she agrees. They record for Sylk and Sylk sounds like a dying animal in the booth. Timothy orders Billie to dub over Sylk’s lines 100% to the point you can barely hear Sylk if not at all. They perform at a nightclub and Sylk is basically Milli Vanilli the whole thing more so ghost singing, Ghost singing, could this be a jab at Jennifer Lopez who signed on to Columbia to spite the departing Mariah? After the night a DJ named Dice. First, he ask to for a picture of Sylk and the girls. As Billie leaves, Dice discovers that she’s the one that was singing Sylk’s song. Later that night, he does this pass the mic session all this to get Billie to sing and she takes off.

After the night ends, Dice wants to work with Billie outside of her group. But she under control of Timmy and its going to take a lot for Dice to gain control of Billie. Timmy tries to play hard to get but Dice is serious about this and offers him $100,000 for Billie’s services, isn’t this slavery? Dice establishes Billie as a local solo act. She gets a contract offer but Dice turns it down as he wants bigger (again remember the debt he owes Timmy). Then another label CMZ is in the club and Dice orders the house DJ to play Billie’s song. The A&R likes what he hears and set up a meeting the next day to sign Billie Frank.

Dice pulls up in a limo and take Billie out on a lavish dinner. What was suppose to be a victorious dinner turns into a date. After the date, he takes Billie to his apartment and that’s where she starts to fall in love with Dice and they do the thing that Louise told them not to do. They end up doing a song that would wind up being Billie’s biggest hit and my biggest headache “Loverboy”. Loverboy is on the radio but during the video shoot we get a taste of the harsh music industry. They want to sexualize Billie by having her scantly clad, then they send Louise friends/dancers off the set. We also get a learn the hectic scheduling of Billie Frank. And during the video shoot, Billie get uncomfortable with the changes and Dice storms out with Billie.

Dice runs into Timmy and reminds him about the debt. Dice calls him out about the bad deal but Dice is at fault in agreeing to those harsh terms. Billie gifts Dice a Yamaha keyboard and after this Billie go through her mom’s personal belongings and she shares a personal dream that she often has about her mom. After this, she writes a song about her mother and it turns out to be “Reflections (Care Enough)”. This gives her motivation to go and find her mother but it’s easier said than done.

Dice in the meantime struggling with the label. They aren’t feeling any of his material as he’s being labeled as stock standard. The label wants dance tunes and could care less about the personal stuff. He tells her not to worry as he’s confident that her album would go platinum and the next album, he would guarantee total creative control. She attends the USA Awards where she performs and afterwards attend an afterparty, she runs into a movie producer who wants to put her in movies (after seeing this one he’ll have second thoughts). Billie meets Rafael played by Halle Berry’s ex-husband and he offers him to record duets together. Dice wants to run out and starts to display Tommy Mottola-like behavior as the night end in a disaster. After the argument, her friends make Billie choose and she chooses Dice.

Outside Billie runs into someone believing that its her mother but it’s just a random hobo. She goes back to Dice’s apartment and Dice isn’t home but Timmy is. This is where Billie finds out about the debt Dice owes. Dice finds out about Timmy and he storms out to beat him up. He gets arrested and Billie bails him out. They have a discussion and Billie ends the relationship as his bad press is detrimental to her career. He makes a remark about her mother and she gives him the Will Smith treatment. Billie goes to her friend’s place and reconcile.

Billie is ready to work with new songwriters and artists and that includes Eric Benet. Dice starts to work on a song outside without Billie and unknowingly she still have feelings for him. After she storms out of rehearsals for a big show at MSG, she tries to find him but is unsuccessful. She leaves a mark to let him know that she was here. He finds out about this and wants to find her, but instead Dice finds Timmy and he shots him. Just before Billie’s big show in MSG, she and her crew found out about the homicide and Billie is unsurprisingly devastated, but the show must go on. Billie tries to perform Loverboy but is overtaken by grief. The grief sends her to a different direction as she performs the song the both worked on separately in “Never Too Far”. After the show Dice left one final note for Billie that he found her long lost mother in Maryland. Billie rides to the rural area in Maryland and reunites with her mother and they live happily ever after.

This was a movie. I got to see how the music industry will try to break you and I feel like there were some similarities on what Mariah had to go through. Now there are some parts of this movie that is cliché with the love story with Dice that appears out of random. Stereotypical villain with Terrance Howard  and there are other scenes that feel like that. I would have thoughts but I want to talk about why this film failed. One the release date, it came out the week after 9/11 and who wanted to do fun things after that attack. Movies, entertainment were on the back of people’s mind. Two Mariah’s acting, this was one of the stiffest acting jobs I’ve ever seen. Three, I didn’t get any joy with this movie especially for a film named Glitter, I might’ve gotten a chuckle with Sylk singing. This movie make you want to feel down and bad for Billie. In all should I recommend, well it depends on what you are looking for in a film. If you like the downer, sad whoaisme or Lambiguity of it all its fine. But for someone who isn’t familiar with Mariah’s arc, I’ll say leave well enough alone.

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