Sparkle

Messy, tear-stained and bighearted, this remake of Sam O’Steen’s 1976 musical moves its trio of ’60s singing superstars from Harlem to Detroit, and focuses more explicitly on ideas of black womanhood and success. The film’s story is less about meek songwriter Sparkle (Jordin Sparks) finding her way to the spotlight while her sisters form a girl group and implode under the pressure of personal drama, than it is about the siblings’ struggles to find a way out of the working-class life in which they were raised. At the centre of the film is Whitney Houston, in her final role, as their iron-fisted mother; looking drawn and uncomfortable, the late singer only comes alive when she lets loose with a church hymn. Emotional and unrestrained, the film sometimes lets its melodrama gets the better of it, but Carmen Ejogo is incandescent as Sister, the group’s talented, destructive star. She’s the one you remember.