CULVER CITY, Calif. - It takes a lot to get an audience applauding during a movie at 2 o'clock on a hot afternoon. But “Sparkle†did the trick, at least three times, during a showing at the Pacific Theaters Stadium 12 here on Friday.
The clapping hands came in, and around the climactic final production number, which features Jordin Sparks, the former “American Idol†star, in her title role as the aspiring singer-songwriter, Sparkle Anderson.
The auditorium wasn't large, but it was reasonably packed with an older, largely female audience that was racially mixed, though the film's cast is almost entirely black. And the viewers were notably happy with the film they'd come to watch. Whitney Houston was all over the screen. Her big gospel performance was definitely big, and her final screen moments were like a ghostly appearance. There she was, taking leave of the audience in a morality tale about drugs and the tre achery of fame.
But it was Ms. Sparks who got the spontaneous applause, for her appearance in an old-fashioned movie about someone struggling to become somebody - the kind of plot that made hits of “Flashdance,†“Chariots of Fire,†“Working Girl,†and any number of films from the ever-more-distant past.
“Expendables 2†is virtually certain to outsell “Sparkle†this weekend. But Sony Pictures, which is releasing “Sparkle†under its TriStar label, is likely to be pleased with the film's performance, if the viewers who were watching a few short blocks from the studio's Culver City lot on Friday have anything to say about it.
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