Reviewed by Naomi Larkin
Cast: Michael Caine, Jane Horrocks, Ewan McGregor, Brenda Blethyn
Director: Mark Herman
LV or Little Voice is an unusual woman who hides an incredible secret gift - her voice.
Painfully reclusive LV (Horrocks, best known as Bubbles from Absolutely Fabulous) seldom speaks, but in the privacy of her attic bedroom
she magically adopts the voices and personas of the legends; Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, Shirley Bassey, Billie Holiday and Marilyn Monroe.
In her room and through her songs, which she dedicates to her dead father, LV can escape her crude, overpowering and abusive mother Mari (Blethyn) who regards her daughter as "dumb and selfish."
However, their lives are thrown into disarray by Mari's new love interest, sleazy, flashy, on-the-skids talent agent Ray Say (Caine), and telephone repairman Bill (McGregor), who fancies LV.
Say hears LV's voice and sees dollar signs. Bill hears her squeaky speaking voice and sees love.
But things really come unstuck when Say persuades LV to take her talents to the big stage.
Jim Cartwright wrote the stage play, The Rise and Fall of Little Voice, from which the film is adapted specifically for Horrocks. Neither could exist without her as she sings all the songs herself, making her performance both astonishing and brilliant. Her ability to mimic the stars is magical.
The splendid singing aside, LV's character does not generate sympathy or empathy. This, accompanied by a sometimes thin plot, are the film's only real flaws.
Little Voice is funny in the way life is funny - it amuses without being contrived.
Horrocks is backed by a top-notch cast.
Caine, who won a Golden Globe for his performance, is wonderfully manipulative - particularly in his attempts to get LV on stage - and his final unravelling reveals the snake within. Blethyn (Secrets and Lies) whose Mari is jarring and occasionally over-the-top, has been nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. McGregor, whose roles are usually more edgy, makes a fine geek, obsessed with his homing pigeons.* * *
- Weekend TimeOut
