The Sapphires drizzles so much syrup over the story (of three aboriginal women who sang soul songs in Vietnam) that the audience is in danger of getting diabetes. I have no problem with true stories being edited or rewritten to better suit a feature film, but it does irk me when history is revised and artificially sweetened so much that it devolves into awful cliches and loses all believability. In the case of The Sapphires, this occurs in the love story between one of the aboriginal singers and the singer's Irish manager (Chris O'Dowd). Oh, isn't that nice, they're coming together, oh no he messed up, but wait he really loves her, oh no he's M.I.A. and has been probably killed by Charlie, oh she's so sad, oh so very sad, oh cry cry cry, but wait, he's actually been rescued and is recuperating in a hospital, oh yay they're back together and they return triumphantly to Australia, having overcome prejudice, the infamous Austro-Irish divide, and goddamn Charlie. It seems as though the filmmakers were emotionally greedy as they felt the need to triple-dip an interesting story in tearjerker/romantic comedy sauce. The performers make the most of the schmaltz, but by the end (to paraphrase Lisa Simpson), the audience has been pumped so full of sap that they're blowing their nose with a pancake.
Side Notes
The soundtrack for the film is solid soul, but one of my bigger film pet peeves is the description of musical brilliance by characters/interviewees. The music can usually speak for itself, so spending time having people discuss "artists that can change your life" is usually unnecessary or hyperbolic. In other news, have you seen the Music section of this site?
Crew & Cast
Directed by Wayne Blair
Written by Tony Briggs & Keith Thompson, based on the play by Tony Briggs
Cast
Chris O'Dowd - Dave Lovelace
Deborah Mailman - Gail
Jessica Mauboy - Julie
Shari Sebbens - Kay