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The performers Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus earn your empathy in the documentary \u201cMilli Vanilli,\u201d a jolting, eye-opening investigation on how fame destroyed them. The war-of-words film, directed by Luke Korem, unfolds like a whodunit.<\/p>\n
The film retraces the bonkers events of Morvan and Pilatus\u2019s na\u00efve rise to the top in the late 1980s as Milli Vanilli, the image-forward pop duo who secretly lip-synced prerecorded songs to live audiences. Their hits included \u201cGirl You Know It\u2019s True\u201d and \u201cBaby Don\u2019t Forget My Number.\u201d<\/p>\n
At first, the duo needed money to escape poverty, but their celebrity status kept them hooked, and their German producer, Frank Farian, held the bait.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
And then, the documentary revisits their fall: During a live performance on MTV<\/a> in 1989, the song started to skip, exposing them as frauds. In 1998, Pilatus died of an overdose. \u201cI lost my sobriety and every sense of reality,\u201d we hear him say in the film.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Impressively, Korem gets those who ran the business side of Milli Vanilli, including officials at Arista Records, to spill the juicy details on what actually happened to the duo: Morvan and Pilatus became Farian and the label\u2019s scapegoats. As presented here, it\u2019s easy to see how this could be the basis for a horror film by Jordan Peele.<\/p>\n Morvan is the heart of the documentary; he reflects on the group\u2019s past treatment (he thinks they deserved that revoked Grammy<\/a>) and raises still-relevant questions about the way the music industry exploits vulnerable performers. Charles Shaw, one of the real singers behind Milli Vanilli, says that Farian, who also worked with the group Boney M., \u201cmade most of his money on Black artists, and it worked.\u201d<\/p>\n Milli Vanilli<\/strong>
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. Watch on Paramount+<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n