In this much-buzzed-about biopic, leading actress Naomi Ackie doesn’t look like the late Whitney Houston, nor can Ackie sing like Houston (in all the big musical numbers, it’s the uber-supple voice of the global icon). But who cares?
As those who’ve seen Lady Macbeth, The End of the F***ing World and season three of Master of None will know, the 30-year-old Walthamstow actress has a blistering on-screen presence. From the get go, she nails it as the savvy but insecure pioneer, seen here from her teenage years until her death in a film that makes clear that the dripping tap of drug use started well before her relationship with Bobby Brown.
It also addresses an issue recent documentaries and TV movies only hinted at. Yes, Houston, whose family nickname was “Nippy”, did have a sexual relationship with Robyn Crawford (Nafessa Williams). The pair met as teens and were lovers for two years. And if their attraction for one another is underplayed (all we see is a kiss on the lips, fully clothed), the heat between them is palpable, as is Crawford’s importance to Houston, even after their split.
Houston keeps her ex close. The tragedy is that she keeps her enemies closer, most notably her charismatic father, John (Clarke Peters in a magnificently icy turn), who’s less interested in supporting his daughter than in playing sugar daddy to his female employees, using Nippy’s money to sweeten the deal.
Ackie is at her absolute best in the fraught scenes with Peters. She’s also electrifyingly raw with the Bambi-eyed Bria Danielle Singleton as Bobbi Kristina, the daughter Houston has with her husband Brown. While you’re watching these segments, there will be tears.
As you’d expect from a movie by Kasi Lemmons, who made the wonderful Harriet Tubman biopic Harriet, I Wanna Dance with Somebody is good at getting beyond the wigs and glitzy frocks synonymous with Houston’s brand (the woman herself’s preference for short hair and casual clothes is emphasised). It also contextualises Houston’s struggles. Asked by a journalist if she is tired, Houston quips, “All Black women are exhausted.”
Not everything works. Clive Davis (Stanley Tucci), the bigwig who signed Houston to Arista Records, is presented as unfailingly droll, decent and empathetic. Essentially, he’s made to look like the perfect father Houston never had. Davis is the movie’s executive producer. What a coincidence.
There are moments, too, where Anthony McCarten (who wrote the script for Bohemian Rhapsody) lays on the ‘inspirational’ stuff a bit too thick. A sequence in which ordinary, happy families gather round tables to listen to her wonderful 1991 Super Bowl rendition of the national anthem is as gloopy as a Coca Cola Christmas advert.
Still, these are quibbles. I Wanna Dance with Somebody is neither a lurid tour of Houston’s “drug hell” nor an attempt to put the singer’s prettiest face forward. Over the past 12 months, we’ve been treated to a string of ambitious dramas about fizzily sad celebs. If Austin Butler’s Elvis is the king of that crop, Whitney (as brought to life by budding superstar, Ackie) is indisputably the queen.
146mins, cert 12A
