Whitney Houston's vocal prowess is so formidable that my audience in my screening repeatedly cheered as the chanteuse demonstrated how diverse genres and challenging scores did nothing to stop her from mastering a song. For example, Houston effortlessly performed "The Star-Spangled Banner," making the rangy melody and the 19th-century words seem fresh. If only more singers could infuse the song with the same freshness and sincerity.
From the clapping in my auditorium, you'd never know the singer had been dead for 10 years.
While "Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody" gives viewers a chance to hear some of her peak performances over a theatrical sound system, the movie itself isn't as unique or as engaging as she was.
The new bio-pic is credited to director Kasi Lemmons ("Eve's Bayou") and screenwriter Anthony McCarten ("The Darkest Hour," "Bohemian Rhapsody"). Despite the involvement of Houston's family and Arista Records founder Clive Davis, who mentored her career, "Whitney Houston" plays as if it were cut and pasted from the Wikipedia entry on her.
Yes, someone tells her of fellow musician Bobby Brown (Ashton Sanders), "He could be good for you."
Even casual fans know that sentence will end up as regrettable as Dick Cheney's declaration on the eve of the Iraq War: "My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."
If you've read a tabloid or have maybe heard something about her while switching channels, you now know the entire two-hour, 26-minute movie.
British thespian Naomi Ackie has a solid voice of her own, but she spends most of the film replicating Houston's dance moves as the sound of the real singer easily dominates the scene. As a result, we really don't get to follow or understand her, which squanders Ackie's own talents.
"Whitney Houston" doesn't sanitize her problems with substance abuse or deny that she was a lesbian, but Lemmons and McCarten keep at arm's length from anything that makes her seem a real live girl. As a result, the cast is stuck with what seems like Jungian archetypes instead of characters.
You can't make a musical bio-pic without relatives who use the artists as walking ATMs, deadbeat, abusive spouses or incidents of chemical recreation gone too far. That said, the better ones use storytelling devices that keep the old tropes from getting stale. In "Love & Mercy," for example, the narrative is split in two, and two very different looking actors play Beach Boys mastermind Brian Wilson. It's as cinematically daring as Wilson's chords and melodies and puts viewers inside his head.
It might have been more productive to examine Houston's relationship with Robyn Crawford (Nafessa Williams). Less ink has been spilled about her, and it could have given the story an emotional depth that's missing in the current film. The new Roku movie "Weird: The Al Yankovic Story" feels more authentic and visceral in comparison.
McCarten and Lemmons at least have the decency to end the film with one of Houston's grandest performances instead of re-enacting her demise. Because of the cold, rote storytelling, we end up missing Houston's voice instead of the story about her. Maybe it would be better to stream her old songs on Vevo and break out the headphones.