I doubt even with another leading lady at the helm, “Glitter” could have risen above abysmal and become remotely watchable. It’s such a cliché and monotonous by the book tale of instant fame, that it barely deserved to be made in to a film. Writers Kate Lanier and John Wilder don’t give any new material or bring anything fresh to the table story-wise, yet simply dole out mindless cliché after cliché relentlessly. Mariah Carey’s woefully misguided “Glitter” is the story of Billie Frank and how as a young child she was left in an orphanage by her drug addicted mother. She and two other orphans form a friendship and a bond and Billie makes an oath that someday she’ll grow up and make it into a huge singing star.
Fast forward a ten or twenty years where Billie (Carey) and her friends are grown-up and clubbers. When a popular DJ known simply as “The Dice Man” (Max Beesley) has an open mic night, she begins singing and is discovered. She is given a record contract and she and “The Dice Man” fall in love, prompting typical pit falls like overworking, a rift between lovers, ad nauseum. What hurts “Glitter” most is that Mariah Carey simply can’t act at all, which makes it hard to watch, since she’s essentially playing herself. She seems anxious to convey heavy emotions and the weight of stardom, to be the innocent child-like character known as Billie, but it’s all in vain. The movie lives and breathes by Carey’s performance, and surely enough it’s lost once she begins muttering her dialogue.
Carey even adds annoying little facial quirks and smiles and tries to gain some chemistry with her supporting cast of actors, all of whom can barely keep the film afloat on their own. Max Beesley is a terrible actor sparking little to no chemistry with Carey, playing the brooding lover who resents Billie for her fame. He scoffs and scowls and plays the bad boy role, trying his best to squeeze tears and get into the emotional scenes but alas, he and Carey look like they’re reading from cue cards. Mariah Carey has proven herself a great singer, and she’s gorgeous, but “Glitter” is just a horrific vanity piece. The sheer amateur writing, acting, and directing make “Glitter” yet another disastrous vanity vehicle that brings down Carey and everyone starring.