TV: A Grim Fairy Tale

I know it's wrong, and it may destine me for some special, American Idol-centric version of hell (where William Hung and Taylor Hicks will take turns bleating at me), but watching the atrocious TV movie The Fantasia Barrino Story: Life is Not a Fairy Tale only made me hate 2004 Idol winner Barrino (who stars as herself) even more. Not that I really hated her in the first place—at worst, I found Barrino mildly annoying, since I'm not a regular AI viewer, although I admit I laughed out loud when I read about her admission of illiteracy last year (Taylor Hicks hell; I know). All I could think of was the scene in Wayne's World with Wayne splashing fake tears on his face and wailing, "I never learned to read!"

But watching Life is Not a Fairy Tale (which premieres on Lifetime at 9 p.m. on August 19 and repeats at 8 p.m. on August 20 and 9 p.m. on August 21) didn't open my heart to Barrino's struggles with illiteracy, or teen pregnancy, or poverty, or a crushing inability to act. No, the only thing Fairy Tale opened my eyes to is that Fantasia Barrino is pretty much a moron. At least, that is, if you take the movie at face value, which is clearly what Barrino and her handlers hope that you do, with the casting of the singer as herself and the touting of her efforts to raise awareness about problems of illiteracy and teen pregnancy. And if Barrino's success helps more people learn to read or deal with unplanned pregnancies, then all the better.

Barrino herself, however, comes off as lazy and self-serving, with no one to blame for many of her problems but herself. She never learns to read properly not because of any failure of the educational system (one scene features a teacher practically pleading with Barrino to come to class) but through her own sheer laziness, never bothering to go to school or pay attention, and eventually dropping out. Although she is raped by a male acquaintance (and of course that is in no way her fault), Barrino's pregnancy comes not out of that tragedy but out of simple irresponsibility and repeated unprotected sex with her boyfriend. After she's pregnant, Barrino moves into her own apartment in low-income housing and refuses the entreaties of her parents to return to living at home. And although the Barrino family struggles, they appear to live a solid, dependable lifestyle, never unable to put food on the table or a roof over their heads.

The failings are at least as much on the part of the film's creative team (including veteran actress and choreographer Debbie Allen in the director's chair) as they are on Barrino and her advisors. Were the movie made with anything resembling subtlety or grace, perhaps its relentless efforts to canonize Barrino wouldn't come off as so grating. But Allen and writer Keith Glover are never able to get across any of their points without resorting to clumsy, heavy-handed devices. When little Fantasia travels from church to church as part of her family's singing group, parishioners are literally asleep in the pews until she unleashes her inspiring voice and infectious energy on the unsuspecting audience.

Of course, one can't expect top-notch production values from a made-for-basic-cable movie, and at least actresses Viola Davis and Loretta Devine (as Barrino's mother and grandmother) bring a little class to the proceedings. But Barrino is such a terrible actress, reading her lines in a mush-mouthed voice as if she learned them phonetically (and who knows if her reading skills are yet up to tackling teleplays) that she renders the whole thing nearly unwatchable. And the truth is that her singing is completely unremarkable.

Given the way that Barrino rises above her challenges to become the modern-day equivalent of a princess (a pop star), Fairy Tale is about the exact opposite of what its title claims: Her life is a fairy tale, but, from the title on down, the film version of it is a self-righteous, disingenuous disaster.