Michael review: Safe celebration that pretends the ugly parts don’t exist
Considering the heavy involvement of the family and the estate (who reportedly funded some of the film), I never expected to get a warts-and-all biopic about Michael Jackson. But Michael is a film that exists purely to remind fans of his greatest hits and completely ignore the rest of his troubled life.
So how do you solve a problem like Michael? How do you celebrate the King of Pop’s legacy as well as address the allegations of child abuse, which began in 1993? Well, it’s simple – you end the film in 1988, and therefore you can pretend they don’t exist. The film isn’t a cradle-to-grave biopic (which would have been impossible to contain in one movie anyway) but a slice-of-life story, starting with the formation of The Jackson 5 in Gary, Indiana in 1966 and concluding with Jackson’s iconic performance of Bad at Wembley Stadium in 1988. In director Antoine Fuqua‘s defence, they reportedly shot footage depicting the 1993 Jordan Chandler allegations, but had to remove it due to a clause in their legal settlement.
Instead, Michael revolves around the music superstar’s struggle to stand up to his abusive and controlling manager and father, Joe Jackson (Colman Domingo), the one-note villain of the piece, and break free from The Jackson 5 and go completely solo. The film ends with the tease “his story continues”, and it has been reported that a second part will come eventually, but I cannot see that happening, considering Jackson’s fall from grace in the ’90s and beyond (he died in 2009). The family and estate would never agree to that, and they are so heavily involved – all of the Jackson siblings depicted in the film (Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, Marlon and La Toya) and his son Prince are executive producers, while his longtime manager and estate executor John Branca is a producer and a character (played by Miles Teller).
In the film, Michael (played by Juliano Valdi and then Jackson’s nephew Jaafar Jackson) tells his mother that nobody treats him like a person. And that is exactly what the film does. It has no interest in showing us who he really was underneath that public persona. He’s presented as a saint, a god, a performing machine who can do no wrong and has no life outside of work and his family (there is no romance at all). You get glimpses of it in the quieter moments, but not in any deep way, but the film is more focused on showing him performing all of the big hits, whether in the studio, on stage, in a dance rehearsal or on a music video set.
So on that front, it delivers exactly what the fans want and how they wish him to be remembered. You can’t deny Jackson’s talent in the performance scenes. I went into this film very cynical, but I was not immune to the warm buzz of nostalgia watching them recreate the full dance from the Thriller music video, which is arguably the best music video of all time. The enjoyable performances are the highlight and a large chunk of the film (which is no surprise) and I did actually learn facts I didn’t previously know, such as the 1984 Pepsi commercial incident.
While there is much to criticise, I have nothing bad to say about Valdi and Jackson. Valdi, playing young Jackson 5-era Michael, is so cute and such a star. That boy is going places. And Jackson does a fantastic job of playing his uncle. The speaking voice, the dance moves, the stage presence (his vocals are blended with Michael’s) and the look are uncanny at times and I genuinely forgot I wasn’t watching the real deal. He’s that good. No other performance is worth shouting about; in fact, the usually dependable Domingo is surprisingly one-note as the domineering Joe.
Michael is a generic, hollow, sanitised celebration of a troubled public figure. Jackson’s daughter Paris, who has distanced herself from the film, put it best, so I’ll quote her directly: “A big section of the film panders to a very specific section of my dad’s fandom that still lives in the fantasy, and they’re gonna be happy with it.” And that is why this movie will do big business at the box office.
In cinemas now