《少女歌星》

    Aubrey Peeples plays the lead role of Jerrica, a sensitive teen who lives with her widowed mother (Molly Ringwald), younger sister Kimber (Stefanie Scott) and foster sisters Aja (Hayley Kyoko) and Shana (Aurora Perrineau) in a California town. When Jerrica sings a soulful song written by herself in front of her cell phone camera, Kimber secretly uploads the performance to YouTube.

    It barely takes a day for the video to go viral, attracting the attention of Erica Raymond (Juliette Lewis), the greedy CEO of Starlight Music, whose tight pants and haughty* manner immediately establishes her as no good.

    Showing up at Jerrica’s home with underling in tow*, Erica tells her and her sisters to “forget all that mediocrity* you grew up in.” She transports them to Los Angeles, puts them up in the company’s lavish* mansion, and assigns their care to her son Rio (Ryan Guzman), who assigns them a curfew* that they immediately break.

    Jerrica, now known by her stage name Jem, has brought with her a small mechanical device created by her beloved dead father. Through plot machinations too tiresome to relate, it becomes an adorable robot named “Synergy” whose role in the story is mainly to make childlike noises.

    To prevent her family from being driven from their home, Jerrica reluctantly* signs Erica’s proffered* solo artist contract, and drops her sisters from the band. But in just an instant, she sees the light and with the help of Rio manages to right her wrongs and become a big music star without having to compromise.

    The pop music performed realistically reflects* much of what’s on the charts these days. Director Jon M. Chu clearly knows something about this, having directed a couple of the “Step Up” films and two Justin Bieber documentary features.

    The film features cameo* appearances by Dwayne Johnson, Chris Pratt and Jimmy Fallon, all claiming to like Jem.(SD-Agencies)