Whitney Houston – I Wanna Dance With Somebody Review: Who is Whitney Houston? Celebrates The Enduring Songwriter and Artist
Cast: Naomi Ackie, Stanley Tucci, Ashton Sanders, Tamara Tunie, Nafessa Williams, Clarke Peters, Bria Danielle Singleton
Director: Kasi Lemmons
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3/5 (three stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody is a film directed by Kasi Lemmons, a well-known American actress as well as director, which retraces the stages that have marked the life and career of the famous singer-songwriter Whitney Houston, played by Naomi Ackie. Also starring Stanley Tucci, Tamara Tunie, Ashton Sanders and Clarke Peters, the film will be in theaters starting December 22, 2022, and distributed by Sony Pictures. Since Whitney Huston passed away in February 2012, cinema has been busy trying to reconstruct the portrait of this incredible artist. In these ten years, therefore, an unauthorized documentary, a television project, and a couple of films have followed one another. Projects, to be honest, of little impact, especially considering the caliber of the character at the center of everything. But why so much fervor around her figure? The answer is rather obvious but due: because she was and is the most beautiful voice of her generation.
And to be honest, not only that. Despite her premature death and the personal vicissitudes that have not always seen her shine it is a must to specify that a talent like the use of the present tense is essential. Ultimately, thanks above all to her music, Huston is destined to be The Voice forever, enjoying that immortality granted by the ancients only to divinities. The same that today puts her at the center of the film directed by Kasi Lemmons and starring Naomi Ackie. A project announced in 2020 and which now arrives in the hall accompanied by some doubts and uncertainties on the part of the passionate Houston fans. It is known that in the creation of a biopic, especially a musical one, the danger of falling into the temptation to create a “saint” or to produce a rather superficial story is always around the corner. These are two aspects that we took into consideration in our review of I Wanna Dance With Somebody.
Whitney Houston – I Wanna Dance With Somebody Review :The Story Plot
It all begins in a New Jersey gospel choir in 1983. Here a young Whitney Elizabeth Huston shows off her incredible singing talent. In fact, the girl has a voice with an extraordinary range. But that’s no surprise at all. In her family, in fact, music is at home. Her mother is Cissy Huston, a particularly powerful singer who, thanks to her talent, has achieved a certain notoriety, especially in the soul environment singing with Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, Dionne Warwick, and Luther Vandross. She is very proud of her talent but, even more, of her daughter’s. For this reason, when during one of her evenings in a local club she sees the face of a famous record producer in the audience, she does not hesitate even for a moment to send her princess on stage. As soon as Whitney strikes the first notes, a kind of magic is created. The crystalline voice, capable of reaching where no one has succeeded so far, enchants the record company. And that’s how she began the career of one of the most awarded artists in the music world. A fairy tale that, however, did not have a happy ending.
Whitney Huston’s first steps into the world of music have the flavor of a fairy tale. Everything seems to start by chance by upsetting the daily life of any girl with a nightingale voice. Her daily life in New Jersey is made up of fixed appointments such as the gospel choir in the church, the evenings as a chorister in the club where her mother Cissy sings and the endless afternoons spent with the Walkman headphones firmly planted on her ears to listen to all the music possible. For her, the melody knows no distinctions of genre or belonging. It’s not white or even black. There is only good and bad music.
With this philosophy, therefore, he becomes part of Clive Davis’ record company, which will support him until the last day of his life. Theirs is a professional relationship but, over time, it turns into personal support. In contravention of her principles, the mild and lucid Clive will try to offer Whitney, dazed by popularity and by the need to satisfy the expectations of others, all of her support. The enemy to defeat, of course, is the use of drugs and a sort of self-destructive tendency. But all this will happen in a few years. During their first meeting in 1983 Whitney is still full of enthusiasm and her only desire is to sing. She still doesn’t know that she is destined for something else and that the world of the star system will swallow her up, transforming her into the princess of America. Too bad she just wanted to be herself.
Whitney Houston – I Wanna Dance With Somebody Review and Analysis
This is the essential question. What many will have asked in the aftermath of Houston’s disappearance without finding an answer capable of bridging the gap between the public image of the successful singer and that of the woman tormented by her fragility. Some might answer by making a detailed list of all of her accomplishments. In this case, Whitney would be the most awarded singer, the most beautiful voice of her generation, and the only artist to have surpassed Elvis and the Beatles by the number of singles in the charts. And we are sure we have forgotten something. Despite everything, however, this does not adequately answer the question.
And sadly, neither do Lemmons films. There is no doubt that the fateful question accompanied her throughout filming and production. This can be understood from the attempt to reconstruct precisely the two faces of the same reality. Despite this, however, the result tends to be disappointing due to a lack of insight. Without denying all the good intentions of the case, Anthony McCarten’s direction and writing always seem to be divided between the desire to offer a personal narrative and that of pleasing the image prepared and delivered by the family. An ambiguity, therefore, ends up defining a narrative set composed of a set of events, ordered and arranged chronologically but lacking any ability to tell something essential and honest about the person, rather than the character. Except for a couple of brief hints along these lines, hopes of glimpsing a reflection of realistic humanity are slim to none.
In the narrative structure of a biopic, finding the right balance between public and private image is the most difficult mission which, most of the time, fails. Usually, we start with the intention of superimposing these two aspects in perfect synchrony, but then we end up being drawn towards the simpler and less problematic one to be reconstructed. An evident problem also in Lemmon’s film is aggravated by a sort of refusal to delve into the thorniest issues. The fear of getting to the bottom of many fundamental issues in Houston’s life such as, for example, her relationship with her friend Robyn Crawford, did not allow us to deliver an honest but, above all, potentially revealing portrait of many problems underlying her fragility of her.
With a succession of images and events, which appear and disappear at the speed of light without any starting and ending motivation, the Robyn issue is quickly filed away as the case of an artist who could not stand the pressure and ran into a sentimental relationship wrong, especially due to the failed marriage of the parents. It’s a pity that reality is quite different and speaks of a girl who has not been allowed to be herself to adhere to a desired and winning image. A price that she has decided to pay in the name of success without, however, being aware of the repercussions. In this sense, therefore, deepening the relationship with Robyn and the possibility of a homosexual relationship would have been an important act of courage. Certainly not to create sensationalism or to conquer the pages of newspapers with a “truth” about Houston, but to understand what essential aspects have been missing in the life of this incredible yet so fragile woman.
On the contrary, Lemmons appears to take this matter reluctantly, scrambling to shelve it as soon as possible without any kind of reasoning. And that’s how, as quickly as she came into Whitney’s love life, Robyn is immediately cataloged as a trusted and faithful friend of hers. The role that he will cover in the following years until the end. A completely different treatment is reserved, however, for Houston. The singer of records is treated with very different respect, constantly gaining prominence in a succession of songs thanks to which she composes a sort of perfect jukebox of timeless hits. Only at the end of the film do the two faces finally manage to meet in a brief and intense moment of truth. But the credit certainly does not go in the direction of the writing. Once again everything is due to Whitney who spreads her enchantment onto the public, coloring Huston’s voice with all the ardor, pride, and desire for revenge of which that little girl from New Jersey was capable. Because, in the end, the most honest image of her that you get is always and only due to music.
Whitney Houston – I Wanna Dance With Somebody Review:: The Last Words
Despite the initial good intentions, Kasi Lemmons misses the opportunity to give the audience the exciting and highly emotional portrait of a woman who, through her voice, has been able to give color to feelings. A complex and multifaceted figure which, however, in this case, is treated in an almost mono-dimensional way. Except for a few rare flashes, soon abandoned, a balance is rarely achieved between the woman and the artist. The latter, in fact, always takes over engulfing the human being. A shame, except for the chance to hear Houston’s incredible voice again in some sort of filmed compilation.
