Reception
Glitter was universally panned, and was also a commercial failure. In the United States, it was released in 1,196 theaters and was the eleventh highest-grossing film over its opening weekend, taking in just $2,414,596. It was originally scheduled to open over Labor Day weekend, but the film was pushed back three weeks when Carey was admitted to a hospital for what she stated was extreme exhaustion. The film eventually grossed just $5 million worldwide. The movie currently holds a 7% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 86 reviews with the consensus saying: "Glitter is a hodgepodge of movie cliches and bad acting that's sure to generate unintentional laughs. Unfortunately, the movie is not bad enough to be good."
Carey stated in 2002, "It started out as a concept with substance, but it ended up being geared to 10-year-olds." The film was panned by critics, and many labeled it as one of the worst films of all time. The Village Voice proclaimed, "For her part, Carey seems most concerned about keeping her lips tightly sealed like a kid with braces, and when she tries for an emotion —any emotion— she looks as if she's lost her car keys." Roger Ebert spoke relatively well of Carey's individual performance saying, "Her acting ranges from dutiful flirtatiousness to intense sincerity...." However, he ended with, "and above all, the film is lacking in joy. It never seems like it's fun to be Billie Frank."
In an interview in 2010, Carey stated that she believed that the film's flop at the box office was largely due to the soundtrack's release date being September 11, 2001 – the same day as the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and The Pentagon. The film also suffered a probable loss of promotional opportunities in the week and a half leading to the film's release due to pre-emption of most American entertainment media shows due to sustaining coverage of the aftermath of the attacks.
Jeff Shannon of Amazon.com gave the film a positive review: "Despite box-office failure and the highly publicized fatigue of its star at the time of its fall 2001 release, Glitter is a surprisingly effective vehicle for pop diva Mariah Carey, who will delight her many fans in her appealing screen debut. The standard rags-to-riches plot unfolds with the predictability of falling dominoes, but there's simple, infectious charm in Carey's portrayal of Billie Frank, an urban thrush who's discovered by ace club DJ Dice (Max Beesley) and rises to stadium-filling stardom in the post-disco New York of 1983. One hoary subplot works (Billie's quest for her long-lost mother) and another doesn't (Dice's debt to a threatening rival), while Carey plays a variant of herself with a gentle blend of vulnerability and good-girl fortitude. With a bright supporting cast and a stellar soundtrack, this movie didn't deserve the bad rap it got, and like her determined yet delicate character, Carey emerges unscathed despite considerable odds against her."
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Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“Aesthetic emotion puts man in a state favorable to the reception of erotic emotion.... Art is the accomplice of love. Take love away and there is no longer art.”
—Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
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