DREAMGIRLS

It's the mid-1960s. Detroit-based The Dreamettes, a black girl singing group, is comprised of lead Effie White, and her backup singers Deena Jones and Lorrell Robinson. They are struggling to make a name for themselves despite their talent. At a local talent competition, they are approached by Curtis Taylor Jr., a used car salesman who wants to break into the music business on the management side. He offers them a job singing backup for James "Thunder" Early, a renowned local black performer who has more of a reputation as a married man seducing his backup singers than his onstage actions, hence the reason he is having problems finding those backup singers. The girls reluctantly accept the offer, that reluctance based on Effie in particular not seeing themselves as backups to anyone else. In making a name for himself and the girls, Curtis brings along for the ride Effie's songwriting brother C.C., and in the process also takes over Jimmy's career. Despite embarking on a sexual relationship, Curtis and Effie, both strong personalities, begin to have diverging views of what it takes to make it in the business, Curtis who sees them needing to break what is racial barrier by sounding more mainstream or "white". The others have to decide what to do, and to who their loyalties lie as they try to make it to the top. Those views may change over time with the onset of the seventies and the change of mainstream musical tastes to disco, and as they see the view from the top in trying to stay there as opposed to looking at the top from the bottom.