Showcase for a mighty voice
Jane Horrocks, best known to international audiences through her portrayal of ditzy secretary Bubbles in the TV show Absolutely Fabulous, has an unusual speaking voice. She also has an astounding singing voice, and the stage play Little Voice was written around her extraordinary ability to mimic artists such as Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe and Shirley Bassey.
After extensive work on the script, writer/director Mark Herman (Brassed Off) has produced Little Voice, with Horrocks reprising her stage role as LV, supported by Brenda Blethyn (Secrets And Lies) as her brassy mother Mari, Michael Caine as dodgy impresario Ray Say, and Ewan McGregor as LV's love interest, shy pigeon fancier Billy.
But the entire movie is really about one thing: mute Little Voice's, or LV's, emergence from her shell to perform a show-stopping medley of the great showbiz voices on stage. This is so obviously the excuse for the film, despite Herman's hard work on creating a story for LV, that the rest seems unbelievable.
Coupled with exaggerated character portrayals by Blethyn and Caine, Little Voice becomes almost fantastical. You are not sure whether to take it for real, or as pure fairytale whimsy.
I know that Horrocks' work is real, though, because I read about it in the production notes: each performance she gives is live-to-film. She is truly amazing, but given the sophistication of modern-day special effects, Horrocks could have been miming. Still, it is nice to know that Horrocks' work is not just a piece of movie magic, even though it was probably best suited to the stage.
Little Voice starts out in the home she shares with her appalling mother Mari in the northern English seaside town of Scarborough, on the day their telephone is installed. LV encounters installation man McGregor, and hears the sound of love on the line.
Meanwhile, the brassy, vulgar Mari encounters has-been promoter Ray (the wonderful Caine) and also thinks her boat has come in.
They make a frightful couple, the tarty Mari and the flashy bad-taste Ray, but he sobers up when he hears the sound of LV singing along to her dead father's records in the attic. He sees LV as his last chance to make a name for himself, but she will barely speak, never mind perform, in public.
Ray and Mari join together to persuade, or force, LV on to the stage: but she promises once, and once only.
Little Voice is the latest from the British independent hit-making machine which produced Herman's Brassed Off, The Full Monty and, more recently, Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels. It is a little bit of a disappointment when compared with the above, but enjoyable enough due to two stellar performances from Caine and Blethyn.
Caine, for his part, acts his socks off here, and it is a pity the film itself is not quite up to his high standard. Blethyn does all that the script requires with great gusto, and her rendition of Mari is sometimes awful enough to make you cringe.
The problem is that Little Voice is not a complete picture. It is a carefully constructed showcase for Horrocks' vocal talents, to which every other character serves as a satellite, even LV herself. McGregor is barely on screen, for example, and LV's dialogue hardly encompasses one fully delivered line.
Enjoyable in parts, Little Voice's parts do not make a whole, although it is a worthy effort from all involved.
Little Voice, Panasia circuit
