I Wanna Dance With Somebody | Dir: Kasi Lemmons | ★ ★ ★ ★
American singer Whitney Houston was Dionne Warwick’s cousin and one of her godmothers was Aretha Franklin. To add to the singing pedigree, her gospel-singing mother Cissy used to sing back up for Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin for many years, and later conducted Whitney in the church choir.
Kasi Lemmons’ biopic starts in 1983 when Whitney’s voice soared for Arista record producer Clive Davis (Stanley Tucci). Naomi Ackie is magical as Whitney and she does sing, but her voice is blended with Whitney’s recordings as Whitney’s extraordinary vocal talent was unique.
Unfolding in chronological order, the film reveals the highs of Whitney’s successful singing career alongside the lows in her personal life. What comes through is that, as her daddy’s princess and America’s sweetheart, she had very little control over the direction of her life.
It was decades later that openly gay Robyn Crawford (played in the film by Nafessa Williams), who was Whitney’s best friend and assistant, wrote about their intimate relationship that eventually ended because of homophobic pressure. Forced to date men for the sake of her public image, Whitney eventually married the abusive Bobby Brown (Ashton Sanders).
The film does highlight the positives and the phenomenal legacy of a life cut short when Whitney died ten years ago at the age of 48. For fans, the film meticulously recreates many of Whitney’s memorable performances and some of the battles she won – such as wearing a track suit for singing the national anthem at the 1991 Super Bowl.
This nostalgic trip shows much of the melodrama of her life that was not hers to own, but it does underplay the turmoil of her childhood, her spiraling drug dependency, Bobby Brown’s domestic violence, her father’s control and financial abuse and the effect all this had on her daughter Bobbi Kristina.
I Wanna Dance With Somebody opens on Boxing Day.
Lezly Herbert
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