Naomi Ackie transforms into the diva in a musical biopic directed by Kasi Lemmons, a portrait of the complex and multifaceted woman behind The Voice.
It is curious to close the year in which (some of us) have celebrated the golden anniversary of the premiere of ‘The sunset of a star’ (Sidney J. Furie, 1972), the biopic of the divine (and tragic) Billie Holiday reincarnated as another diva as Diana Ross, with the premiere of another film biography to greater glory (without hiding shadows) of a star without discussion and also tragic as Whitney Houston. Fifty years separate a production from the Motown record company that had a great impact on the descent into the hells of drugs, but even more on heartbreak, of the unrepeatable jazz, blues and soul singer, with this, fortunately not hagiography (but almost: comes from the “official” environment of the artist)) who led the soundtrack of ‘El guardaespaldas’ to be the best-selling in history. In this half century it would seem that there is a greater ability to delve into the heart and career of the singer without censorship, something that would distance the academic film by Kasi Lemmons from the tinctures of luxury blaxploit of Sidney J. Furie. However, as much as the peripheral account of Whitney Houston’s rise and fall is that of a woman who had to suppress her lesbian feelings towards her close friend, Robyn Crawford, and how that led her to face the pain of a “normal” life that was a via crucis, everything is too sweetened, even the sequences with his mother and with that monster called Bobby Brown. ‘The setting of a star’ was, in this sense, more honest. Also more tabloid, but in the tear of Billie Holiday’s bad life, the film ended up finding the key to understanding the supreme art of a voice as beautiful as it is broken.
‘I wanna dance with somebody’ is not, despite this, a negligible biopic (and it clones that almost terminal and beautiful final performance from The Twilight of a Star). Its structure has been proven commercially effective before (the script is by Anthony McCarten, signer of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’) and softens the harshness of the darkest episodes in the life of Whitney Houston with the aforementioned homosexual love story (which is narrated with delicacy and formal beauty, never falling into kitschness) and, above all, with once again (as in the film about Freddie Mercury) the exciting and intelligent trick of explaining to us who and what the artist was like through the genesis of her songs. A) Yes, The best of this ‘A Star Is Born’ where Vickie Lester and Norman Maine are the same person (woman) lies in the connection between each great song and the vital, emotional and professional state of Houston. In an exercise in narrative radicalism, with which Kasi Lemmons, the director, flirts throughout her ditto footage, ‘I wanna dance with somebody’ becomes a musical, which goes from light to darkness, by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, and where the songs are the ones that really explain the story to us.
For orphans of Whitney Houston looking for her at the end of the rainbow
DATA SHEET
Direction: kasi lemmons Distribution: Naomi Ackie, Ashton Sanders, Stanley Tucci, Clarke Peters, Nafessa Williams Country: USA Year: 2022 Release date: 21–12-2022 Gender: biographical musical Script: Anthony McCarten Duration: 146 min.
Synopsis: From choirgirl in New Jersey to one of the best-selling and most awarded artists of all time, an unqualified portrait of the complex and multifaceted woman behind The Voice.
Source: Fotogramas
Emily Jhon is a product and service reviewer at Gossipify, known for her honest evaluations and thorough analysis. With a background in marketing and consumer research, she offers valuable insights to readers. She has been writing for Gossipify for several years and has a degree in Marketing and Consumer Research from the University of Oxford.