This is Mariah Carey's debut movie, which aroused predictable debate about her looks and talent when released in America. Carey's music has won admirers and trashers like no one's business. The movie, it seems, carries this burden, especially in the way it deals with her song and dance. The context is the post-1983 disco scene and Carey plays Billie Frank, a girl trained and abandoned by her single mother at a young age. Frank grows up to become a stand-up singer who is then discovered by a New York club DJ called Dice (Max Beesley).
The rest of the movie is about Carey's rise to fame via love and misunderstanding with Dice and the search for her mother. This is too flimsy a material for a full-length feature. Moreover, the focus is too much on Carey herself. The feelings that ought to come out of the story are subsumed by frames, which never touch the point of emotional connection. The same goes for the use of music—the disco scene doesn't come alive beyond some exotic dance scenes, which make the era look more like a superficial tapestry of silky voices and naked legs.
