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This is an independent film from 2006 that is rather fantastic. The movie starts off with several band members looking for the wide distribution of their new album which contains a sound that is not longer hot in the charts and has a fading audience. In the meantime, they have been playing at the local club for awhile and their take at the club on this particular night leaves them short a few dollars and grandma picks up the tab. By the way, grandma was great in this film. As they get rejected on their big album at the big meeting with the music executive, they ask why someone with a similar sound is being kept on and they said because the band leader had met with a tragedy and this made the band interesting and a buy on the charts. From this meeting, the idea springs that the lead singer and song writer of the band, Dan, will fake his demise in a sailing exposition gone bad where only the boat is found and this would generate renewed interest in the band. He does this to the point where the tragedy is headlines in the newspaper and all of the sudden the band is welcomed back with sympathy and open arms by the music producers with a new chance for a launch of their CD. But not enough buzz is being generated and when a music magazine writer calls for an interview as to what Dan was like and what actually happened, Dan who has been in hideaway for a month answers the phone and agrees to conduct the interview, disguised a Danielle, a women, who will talk about Dan and what he meant to everyone. Only the drummer of the band knows that Dan is now Danielle with his wig and women’s clothes and changed voice. What follows is in the realm of comedy drama but also quite pensive and thought provoking. The magazine writer is a rather beautiful women, who is not wholly confident in her beauty and somewhat skeptical about her own ability to find romance and her launching pad is starting to be at the point of a slight desperation. She has imaginings towards her dashing manager at the magazine, who happens to be married and doesn’t always dissuade her imagings, although it is seemingly accidentally as he isn’t for the most part intentionally leading her on as his natural charm seems to emanate towards her. From the initial interview with this beautiful but somewhat insecure magazine writer a friendship forms with Danielle who becomes her confidant while aptly presenting the false persona of a woman with nevertheless a working sympathetic ear as this beautiful magazine writer finds solace in this relationship and its rap as women to women or so she thinks. As they gloss over pictures of Dan in memorabilia, she comments on how handsome he was, and Dan in his disguise starts to like her and realizes it could have been mutual. In these new escapades, Dan has left behind a plastic and opportunistic girlfriend who loves the superficial so much that she doesn't seem to look at anything else, and who further reveals her true colors by her reactions after Dan’s supposed demise. The acting performances here were rather incredible particularly by Dan as Danielle and the other actors where quite good in there roles such as the drummer and his girlfriend and any number of other peripheral actors. Danielle surprisingly begins a rapid ascent as a nationally popular songwriter and singer as when she first takes the mike at the club having introduced herself as Dan's cousin and sings a song with a quasi women’s voice that was really a voice that is a cross between a male and female that you sometimes see in today’s music world that is just mesmerizing to the bar audience and tugs at the hearts of those present at the club, particularly two young beautiful women who seem to be pining for lost love or love never found as they listen to the song. I’m not sure if the actor did the vocals on this song but the song itself was rather amazing in terms of the musicianship and the lyrics as were several other songs in this movie. The two girls sitting together are touched to the core as you see this in their faces as this moment captures something for them lyrically and another prominent women music executive who happened to be present at the club signs on to the sound as she immediately recognizes this sound as having super high potential and how it represents kind of a crossover sound that melds into a new leader. An explosion of popularity takes place as the songs are recorded and concerts booked, and Dan is now finding the popularity he always wanted disguised as a women as he now has full range to write his type of songs, or hers. Within all this, is a vignette that is just amazing, to where it choreographs the new music to scenes where he or really she is meeting with fans and captures a breezy exhilaration to where everybody is joyful about what is happening and a real equal footing feeling is found between the fans and this new star in a type of renaissance that can be felt in the moments, whether it be his meeting with two women fans face to face on equal terms or signing albums for a long line of admirers at the record megastore, everybody was there for each other and truly appreciative of each other in the moments presented under the rapture of song. From there, the conflicts are the love relationships and what is really ultimately going to make Dan now disguised as Danielle happy in the long run and will he need to unmask and give up his new popularity to get what he truly wants as he is realizing his heart has other musings that need tending. This is an excellent film and for what it was trying to do, hits right on and contains nice moments all the way through.
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