A Little Voice In My Head

I was flipping channels looking for a movie, any movie that was about to start and stopped on one I was unfamiliar with. It had some familiar names in the cast, Michael Caine, Ewan McGregor and Brenda Blethyn. Most of you are familiar with the first two; Brenda Blethyn was in an exceptional film, Saving Grace, which I heartily recommend. Tonight’s film was called, Little Voice, never heard of it; but decided to take a chance.

The story revolves around an extremely shy woman, played by Jane Horrocks. The young woman lives above a record store operated by her obnoxious mother, Brenda Blethyn. Most of the film would be what I’d classify as forgettable and I stuck around only because there was some good music played on old vinyl platters by the young woman while hiding from life up in her room. She would console herself while looking at a picture of her father, who died leaving her to put up with a cruel world; only her records to get her through each day.

The power for the apartment goes out while Michael Caine’s character is in amorous embrace with the mother down stairs, while the young woman was playing her records upstairs. He gets to hear the young woman’s ability to mimic Judy Garland’s voice flawlessly with the power out. On top of that she also does Marilyn Monroe and Shirley Bassey. He has her perform a full show at a local talent spot where she knocks them dead with an electrifying performance, all the time in her mind she’s singing to dear departed dad’s ghost sitting in a chair out front.

When the movie was over, during the rolling of credits I learned that all the songs had been performed by Jane Horrocks, the shy little woman with a squeaky apologetic voice. I had assumed that everything was done with voice over technology, kind of a lip sync from old recordings; wow, that was an eye opener. The movie was mostly depressing; imposing people being rude and ugly to everyone; all except Ewen McGregor and Jane Horrocks.

I’d never heard of Jane Horrocks so I looked her up on Google; found the movie listed on Amazon.com and a couple of recordings she’d made. The first was the movie soundtrack which I’m glad I didn’t buy. The reviews explained that while the movie may have had Jane Horrocks voice doing the old songs, the soundtrack didn’t; what a waste. I then found a CD, “The Further Adventures of Little Voice Jane Horrocks”, which was more to my liking. It has her talents listed with each song, even one where she’s matched up with a resurrected Dean Martin. I’m looking forward to getting that one in the mail; as for the movie, thumbs down and make sure to flush.