Whitney - Una voce diventata leggenda

I Wanna Dance With Somebody is a bit hit and miss for me.

The big hit is Naomi Ackie's performance. I was completely transported and absorbed by her portrayal of Whitney, and thought she handled the role perfectly. Obviously the music was always going to be great so that's another real point in this film's favour.

The miss for me comes in the form of the structure and storytelling. There is always a balance to strike in a musical biopic between how much you focus on the music and how much you focus on the person. For me this film got this balance wrong and spent too long showing full performances of Whitney and showing off her voice. We know she had an incredible voice, and as great as it is to hear it over and over, I would have liked to dig down into the woman herself even more.

When we dig down into her personal life, her relationship with Bobby Brown, her relationship with her mother and father, her treatment by the press and her drug issues, everything felt very surface level. Particularly the latter two.

I appreciate that the film perhaps didn't want to tread too heavily down these dark avenues which is entirely reasonable, but it does mean the film lacks punch at times. As a result the highs are never particularly high and the lows are never too low which diminishes the impact of the film.

I did also think that the film was a tad too long and could have been trimmed by 10 minutes at least.

Considering there are so many musical biopics these days I can't help but compare this film to others that have hit the screens in recent years such as Elvis, Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocketman, and this is easily lagging behind in this pack. Still, it boasts a terrific performance from Ackie, a great soundtrack, and several powerful moments. However as a whole the film does feel rather muted.

For those of us who grew up listening to Whitney Houston as her story was splashed across the news and into our lives as it happened, there is nothing new here. We would have been better served if the filmmakers just did a documentary with the real Whitney Houston spliced into it here and there, as I didn't find the actress believable in the role. She may have studied her mannerisms etc. But it didn't work. Whitney was a very good looking woman, who could sing, she had style (or her stylist had) but she carried it off. Usually with Biopics you forget that its an actor playing a part but this didn't happen and it was distracting. Save yourself the time and just watch the real Whitney in a few videos on YouTube.

If you can overlook the fact that she looks nothing like Whitney Houston, Naomi Ackie manages the impressive task of channeling the icon in a manner that feels both authentic and respectful. My problem with this overlong 2022 biopic is the Wikipedia-level approach that director Kasi Lemmons and screenwriter Anthony McCarten took in telling Houston's story with one familiar scene or performance moving to the next with little sense of dramatic transition. It comes as no surprise that McCarten wrote the similarly elliptical "Bohemian Rhapsody". Some moments (like the "How Will I Know?" video and the national anthem at the Super Bowl) were captured faithfully and with conviction by Ackie who lip-syncs to Houston quite effectively. Other moments felt like they belonged on Lifetime with honest revelations few and far between.

I like a biopic as much as the next person. But when one creates a biopic, they have to show a different side to the person we know behind the celebrity, or something the average person doesn't really know up until this point.

This film ain't one of them.

The film takes up way too much of its runtime showing Whitney's iconic performances in their total. Which not many music biopics do and for good reason; we can just watch them elsewhere.

It also doesn't focus in too much on her personal life. The domestic and drug abuse between her and Bobbi was toned down, her relationship with Robyn, arguably the best moments in the film, are fleeting, and the film is way too nice to Clive Davis (not surprising since he executive produced the film) who was like her family, but also like her family, tried to mould her into something she was not.

It's clear that to this day, people still want to control Whitney's legacy. So as a result, the film cannot explore the complexities, flaws, turmoils and difficulties of this incredibly talented woman. Because there is no doubt, she was a one of a kind phenomenal singer.

But the film is not interested in going further into her inner emotional life - only scratching the surface and emphasising her talent.

I would suggest watching the Kevin MacDonald documentary, which focuses more on why Whitney ended her life the way she did and the clues to her inner turmoil, while also listing her contributions to the music world and the things she loved the most in life.

"I will always love you."

No matter that the bio of Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody is riddled with pop-singer-tragic-bout with drugs, leading to her death because she remains the highest grossing singer of all time, not bad when you consider she keeps the fame fellowship with Barbra, Aretha, and Judy.

From Gospel to R & B, the Jersey-girl Whitney gradually becomes known as "The Voice." Therein lies a potential rub in the picture as the glamorous Naomi Ackie, an acceptable singer but apparently qualified to lip-synch only to Houston's transcendent voice. Knowing this before I entered the theater, I was won over within minutes: Ackie's lip-synching is flawless, the best I have ever seen. Houston's cool modulation and momentous key changes are here in reality.

I fretted not, for I accepted Ackie as Whitney, looks and voice, in a stunning interpretation of the pop princess turned queen. In a veritable flash of a moment after being discovered at Sweetwater's, she is shepherded by the estimable Arista Records president Clive Davis (Stanley Tucci in his most urbane role ever) through her career, respectful as he was about what she liked to sing, and uncanny in offering her songs that catapulted her to fame.

When Davis introduces her on The Merv Griffin Show, she stops hearts with "Home" from The Wiz and allows director Kasi Lemmons to set up the operative heart-breaking motif of her longing for a home life that Bobby Brown (Ashton Sanders-remember him from Moonlight?) will never give her.

Whitney's character arc is well known from "America's Sweetheart" (an appellation she hated) to drug-addled has-been, not unlike Winehouse and Spears. (Her unconventional love with Robyn Crawford (Nafessa Williams) brought her misery as well). Because so many singers, male and female, fell under the sway of narcotics, it's possible this biopic has been undersubscribed because of the almost cliched story line.

In addition, Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody downplays the abusive role Bobby Brown, probably because of his attorneys threatening lawsuits. Although I am uncomfortable with graphic violence on the screen, some of it would have given an authentic edge to her troubled story. As would have scenes depicting her actual encounter with drugs.

This Whitney biopic may soften the effects of her addictions, but it never fails in featuring and interpreting the music that brought wealth and fame. Kudos to Naomi. Not so to the drug overdose that led to her drowning.

Take heart, this story lingers frequently on full songs in her real voice. It can't get better than that.