By: Christopher James
No one loves their cliches more than the biopic genre. However, no music biopic has blown through every cliche with such quick and reckless abandon as Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody. That’s not necessarily an insult.
Few pop culture icons loom as large as Whitney Houston, “The Voice,” who holds the record for seven consecutive number one singles atop the Billboard Top 100. By virtue of also being a modern celebrity, most people have some concept of Houston. Thus, the biopic spends less time educating people on who Whitney Houston is. In fact, it’s a crash course through her Wikipedia. Unfortunately, it misses out on her soul and motivation - what drove Whitney Houston from the biggest star in the world to death at 48?
The simple answer the movie gives is drugs, but it never decides to dig deeper.
We first meet Whitney Houston (Naomi Ackie) as a defiant teenager adding runs and vocal flourishes to the gospel songs her mother, Cissy Houston (Tamara Tunie) is teaching. Cissy is a singer herself and Whitney wants to follow in her footsteps, even hoping to reach the heights of family friends Aretha Franklin and Dionne Warwick.
Whitney Houston's iconic National Anthem performance is one of many musical moments brought to life in this film.After one powerhouse performance with her mother, Whitney catches the eye of producer Clive Davis (Stanley Tucci), who signs her to Arista Records. She became an overnight success with her bestselling debut album. However, as par for the course for any biopic, success has its own set of challenges.
From here, the movie picks up and drops story threads like its browsing Saks Fifth Avenue. There’s some conflict where Whitney responds to criticism that she’s “not black enough,” but that is dropped just as soon as it's introduced. Much of the early movie is spent with Whitney’s female lover, Robyn (Nafessa Williams), who soon becomes her executive assistant. Their relationship feels lived-in, but once she meets Bobby Brown (Ashton Sanders), Robyn all but disappears. When Robyn reappears any conflict around their romantic relationship has vanished. Though a major part of her tabloid persona, Bobby Brown is rarely seen and is just a one-note obstruction when he is.
Though incomplete, the relationship between Whitney (Naomi Ackie) and Robyn (Nafessa Williams) represents some of the strongest moments in the biopic.There’s one major cliche that director Kasi Lemmons sidesteps. The film is not self-serious or pitying of Whitney Houston. Her drug use is clumsily set up midway through the movie; five minutes later Whitney has hit rock bottom. If someone were trying to learn what it was like to follow Whitney Houston for decades, this would not be the right film introduction. For fans, it’s a perfectly sloppy vehicle. It celebrates and elevates her, spending more time with her iconic performances, fun idiosyncrasies, iconic music videos and moments of joy with Robyn. The movie revels in black joy more than black suffering, even though Whitney could be the poster child for both. Screenwriter Anthony McCarten and Lemmons fail in constructing a legible film, but they at least make a fun one.
Playing Whitney Houston is a daunting task that Naomi Ackie is more or less up for. She looks the part and most of the singing sequences use Whitney’s voice. Therein lies the issue, she evokes Whitney more than she embodies her. Watching the movie, you can see that Ackie understands what made Whitney special. Yet, she doesn’t bring herself to the role or delve deeper into Whitney’s perspective, an issue that's already in the script. In the end, the performance comes off as a strong impersonation. That’s still more than can be said of any of the supporting cast, who aren’t given enough material to transcend their two-dimensional purposes in the story.
Music is the centerpiece of the movie, with some performances (like the 1994 American Music Awards medley) given the opportunity to play in full.Still, if you are still with your family on extended holiday and need something to take your Mother or Grandmother to, Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody is waiting for you with open arms. It’s a rocking good time with two and a half hours packed with Whitney music, Lifetime level overacting and just buckets of charisma. It’s not right, but it’s OK. B-
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody is currently playing in theaters now.