'Sapphires' has lots of sparkle

"THE SAPPHIRES" takes a curious footnote in history - Australian aborigines singing Motown for soldiers in Vietnam - and turns it into a crowd-pleasing comedy.

This is no mean feat - director Wayne Blair is candy-coating some of the same elements that comprise "Rabbit Proof Fence" and "Platoon." And there are moments when the movie grows clumsy and stumbles (it shows signs of drastic editing).

Mostly, though, it gets by on the abundant charm of the cast - Chris O'Dowd (from "Bridesmaids") and the four Aussie fireballs (Deborah Mailman, "Australian Idol" star Jessica Mauboy, Shari Sebbens and Miranda Tapsell) found to play the singing group plucked from the outback to tour of the front lines.

"The Sapphires" starts with a quick sketch of the prickly racial dynamics that define the lives of the singers - aborigines or mixed-race women isolated from white society at a mission on the edge of a rural community (the movie is set in 1969, just one year after aborigines had won the right to vote).

The girls venture into town to enter a singing contest, where a hostile white crowd hoots at them. The sleepy, itinerant emcee (O'Dowd) wakes up, however, when he hears their heavenly harmonies, and arranges an audition for an armed-services gig.

There is some minor, standard conflict among the women, and most of this goes according to time-honored musical-comedy movie formula. It's given life, though, by the chemistry and appeal of the cast.

They perform the difficult trick of making their abrasive back-and-forth come off as endearing. There's a toughness and resilience to them that's real and infectious - especially so when they matter-of-factly shrug off the racism that they encounter.

The standard follow-your-dreams storyline takes them to Vietnam, where some paper-thin subplots play out, drowned out by the power of the women's voices. The movie is most successful building on the more substantial relationship between the weak-willed manager (O'Dowd) and the offstage leader of the Sapphires, played with zeal by Mailman, whose character may have enough backbone for both of them.