Beauty

What is a music film about a singer where the principal character NEVER SINGS? Very sporadic, choppy, misdirected piece that never fully invests in the characters, no development of any kind, no idea of the trials and tribulations that made her what built up. A bunch of ra ra hype with absolutely no hype. What was the point? Where did this all come from? The saddest thing is the comparisons with Whitney Houstons story, the tight Christian Family, a hidden addiction problem, a secret lesbian affair, an eventual bad boy intervention. Waste of Giancarlo, Nicey, Sharon, the young talent smh. When there are so many great scripts and talent not cultivated in the movie industry yet waste of films like this can be greenlighted? There's a mad problem!

This wasn't a biopic in the traditional sense of such stories. If you are looking at it from that genre, you will be very disappointed. I think the writer and production were trying to focus on the story of a talent going into the entertainment business and the changes for her, her family, and friends. Yes, it is very familiar to a life story we know well, but it is not about the talent, the voice, or the legend. We already know that part well. But what about the struggles that person faces with impending notoriety (i.e. R&b v. Pop star, traditional "good" church girl v. Alternative lifestyle, well-spoken v. Urban). The acting was good with what the actors had to work with. Photography was excellent. However, the plot and characters needed to be fill out more. And, the pacing was off in the build up to the end of one era for the singer and moving on to the next. I loved the interspersed video of singing legends, which more than made up for any musical accompaniment from the actors.

Anyone who says this isn't a Whitney esq bio clearly is unaware of the Whitney story out of the mainstream. It feels like Lena was trying to attempt a quentin tarantino thing ... like he did with Once upon a time in Hollywood, giving us a truthful story with a fictional twist.

I can also understand a viewers aversion to the no singing approach. Which again was a stylistic choice, in a way to show us other singers and the culture of the time and how that in tow was her voice. The influences.

And the direction has a theatrical theme but never goes deep enough into the characters to ever engage with them, feel them and therefor care for them.

But what I struggled with most is... how is this from the same writer that gave us Queen and Slim!!!!!

I am confused by the idea of a film where the protagonist is an up and coming singer whom we never hear sing.

I spent the entire runtime trying to figure out what the director was trying to say by structuring the movie the way it was and have come up short.

Arguably one of the least engaging movies I've seen to date.

This really could have been the definitive "Whitney Houston" movie, but sadly it only focuses on one tiny aspect of the singer's life. The estate is still very protective of Whitney's image so I understand the difficulty in bringing the true story to screen. All that said, this film does a great job telling an unauthorized fictional version. Good writing, good cast, production design, and direction. It actually covers a good portion of her family dynamic considering the short time allotted. However, It's a terrible shame that we couldn't get any music whatsoever from the popstar. Not even a soundtrack of original music. For a movie about an amazing singer, she should have sang at least one song. Terrible. Because of that, it suffers from a lack of energy and therefore the picture isn't balanced. It's just kind of one note which really sucks because this could have been an amazing biopic. Authorized or not. But what we get is a fine family drama with loose ends.