Miss Flicks

I Wanna Dance with Somebody: Film Review

Given the incredible highs and the rock bottom lows in Whitney Houston‘s life, it was inevitable a movie biopic would be made at some point – and that day has finally arrived thanks to I Wanna Dance with Somebody, starring Naomie Ackie.

As most biopics do, this film, directed by Kasi Lemmons, starts with Houston’s humble beginnings in ’80s New Jersey and swiftly moves onto her being discovered by record executive Clive Davis (Stanley Tucci). It charts her incredible rise to fame and covers her relationship with Bobby Brown (Ashton Sanders), her “friendship” with Robyn Crawford (Nafessa Williams), her substance abuse issues and tragic demise.

The movie was written by Anthony McCarten, the screenwriter behind Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, and that tells you all you need to know. Much like that film, I Wanna Dance with Somebody is the visual equivalent of the top section of a celebrity’s Wikipedia page. It covers all of the big hits and glosses over – or barely touches upon – deeper issues.

The problem is that Houston simply had too many hits and too many problems for them all to be adequately covered in one movie. As it is, this feature is two hours and 26 minutes long and it feels very surface-level. It doesn’t tell us much that we don’t already know and you can feel Lemmons trying to pack it all in, moving from the next key moment in her life to the next and the next without giving the story any room to breathe.

This movie is more like a celebration of Houston’s career achievements and it’s certainly a success in that regard. I enjoyed singing along to the hits as I watched Ackie recreate a music video, a live performance or a recording. But there are simply too many of those and they don’t add much to the story; they simply mark where her personal life intersects with the professional. Some of the performances should have been cut down or dispensed with altogether to give us more time to explore the meaty subjects I cared about – her highly tumultuous marriage to Brown, her father ruining her financially and what she truly felt towards Crawford.

The screenplay felt very weak and, this is pure speculation, but it felt like it had a lot of outside output from Houston’s family because it’s a bit too soft and respectful regarding her downfalls. Davis and Houston’s sister-in-law Pat Houston are producers of the film and are both portrayed as characters (although Pat is given barely any introduction and just sort of appears). Plus, there is a line that absolves Brown from any blame over the singer’s drug problem and that felt like it was there for his benefit. I also thought her death could have been handled better – if you don’t know when or how she died, the scene is not clear.

I cannot fault Ackie at all because she is terrific as Houston and the film’s biggest asset. She doesn’t look much like her but her speech is convincing and I believed her in the role for the most part. Her lip-syncing to Houston’s recordings is spot-on and at some points, I totally thought she was doing it for real. The hair, make-up and costume teams also deserve praise for recreating Houston’s looks, although the teeth were a bit too obviously fake. Meanwhile, Williams was excellent as Crawford but I did not believe Tucci as Davis or Sanders as Brown.

I Wanna Dance with Somebody is a great showcase for Houston’s almighty career but doesn’t do her whole life justice. If you want more insight into her private life you should seek out the documentaries Whitney or Whitney: Can I Be Me instead. Those films had me bawling about her life but this biopic-by-numbers didn’t hit emotionally at all – and that speaks volumes.

In cinemas Monday 26th December