WHITNEY SHOWN IN BEST LIGHT

STORY OF SINGER TOLD IN HER SONG AND THE SCRIPT

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

The Whitney Houston biopic splices the full songs of music video with the biopic material about the rise of one of the greatest R&B Pop music voices.

Naomi Ackie stars as Whitney in the biopic, I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022).

Director Kasi Lemmons casts Ackie with Stanley Tucci as Clive Davis, Ashton Sanders as Bobby Brown and Nafessa Williams as Robyn Crawford.

Tucci is cast well as the record producer, having become in the course of his acting career the face of many supporting characters with pivotal roles in the script alongside such leading actors as Colin Firth, Rosamund Pike, Benedict Cumberbatch and Julia Roberts.

Davis is accredited with discovering and signing to record deals several of the most important musicians of a generation, including Santana, Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd, Barry Manilow and Whitney Houston.

Ashton Sanders is cast well as Houston’s boyfriend and husband Bobby Brown.

Lemmons presents a career retrospective showing how Houston emerged with her voice from relative obscurity just as many basketball players emerge from the housing projects as a result of their athletic skills.

The rise to fame and fortune is a family affair though, with Ackie showing how Whitney was very much managed by her parents after being trained to control her voice and sing the way she does by her mother.

Ackie does a good job transitioning from entertainer in the full songs performed for the music videos and then into acting the biopic segments.

The music industry is front and center while the famous singer’s struggles with drug addiction becomes a bit of a sidebar.

Lemmons shows how producer Clive Davis was a gentle giant with a lot of intuition in how to deal with and get the most out of such immense talents as Houston. Davis let Houston pick her songs after collecting demo tapes from various sources based on Whitney’s singing criteria.

The narrative swings back and forth from the stage performances to the backroom music industry dealings as well as the domestic relations aspects interlaced with the increasing fame and fortune.

The 2hr 26m runtime goes by at a good clip as a result.

The underlining message is that the songs performed by Whitney Houston tell the story of her life as much as the dialogue between the various characters.

Whitney asked Davis to find her great big songs that she would not be able to wrap her arms around and that would make her climb a mountain to successfully perform.

Houston’s brief movie career is given a few minutes with several scenes dedicated to her self-referential role in The Bodyguard (1992) costarring Kevin Costner as the bodyguard.

Lemmons quickly puts Black politics on the sidelines when a radio interviewer suggest that Whitney is a sellout because she does not perform as a real Black artist but rather as some sort of white colonized entertainer.

Ackie clearly states in a matter of fact fashion that Houston is neither a Black performer or a white performer, but more definitely an R&B Pop music entertainer.

Ackie also shows how Whitney navigated the business of music with her father, well played by Clarke Peters. John Houston mismanaged the empire, though, resulting in his daughter being forced into a pressure loaded world tour in support of a $100 million record deal.

The narrative is also woven together with the intimate interpersonal relationships of the family and the music business that can make or break a person.

Ultimately, succumbing to debilitating drugs and stubborn patriarchy are the singer’s downfalls with Davis being so concerned as to break protocol and mention to the singer her need to attend rehab.

This biopic is a good and entertaining film, particularly for R&B Pop fans, but the director missed the score for art house filmmaking, and seemed to be indecisive about whether to make a music video or a biographical film.