Whitney fans, of course, have long seen him, the unauthorized documentary_Whitney: Can I Be Me_ which Nick Broomfield made in 2017. They may have foundit honest, perhaps a little too raw, and above all not enough about the music,although that was not entirely true. Broomfield had access to unique backstagefootage from the 1999 world tour. As a result, that film tour inevitablybecame a pivot in Whitney Houston’s tragic life, which ended in 2012 in hernever-quite-explained death. Broomfield was quite nuanced and discreet, butwas not afraid to show that Houston’s life was marked by complicated familyrelationships that led to her drug use, unhappy marriage to R&B bad boy BobbyBrown, and the financial house of cards that eventually loomed over her. tocollapse.
At the same time, his film was also an ode to the energy and originality of asinger who scored successes with number one hits such as ‘I Wanna Dance WithSomebody (Who Loves Me)’ (1987) and ‘I Will Always Love You’ (1992). whichhave not been equaled since. What the documentary also made clear was: thatvoice! You can endlessly try to describe the secret of Houston’s octaves thatsometimes rolled like autumn storms and sometimes light like wind chimes, butit’s better to listen to it. And you don’t even have to be a fan for that.
Dream away film
Unlike in Bloomfield’s documentary, her life is romanticized quite a bit inthe new film: I Wanna Dance: The Whitney Houston Movie. The best moments inthe fictional biography of Houston’s life (1963-2012) are those in which sheselects songs with her discoverer, music producer Clive Davis, which she thenbends to her will within a fraction of a second. And: A Hit Is Born! Davis wasalso involved as an executive producer The Whitney Houston Movie and forhim, putting her music in the spotlight was the main goal of this film.
Of course, it’s all there: the jealous mother, the clapping father, theforbidden love for Robyn Crawford, who had to go through life as her ‘personalassistant’. The drug use has largely been kept out of the picture, there aresome mysterious dealings with someone posing as an autograph hunter, there issome cocaine on a mirror. But actually it has become a dream movie. Bigsurprise: the lead role of Naomi Ackie. Not a doppelgänger, not a stand-in,but an actress who adds everything to the scenario in small cans that is notspoken. Maybe Houston sang so well because her life echoed in her songs. Aboutthings like that I Wanna Dance: The Whitney Houston Movie hardly. It’s Ackiewho calls this out for us.