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Whitney Houston: "I Wanna Dance with Somebody"

 Was Whitney Houston an interesting person? Did she have political convictions? Did she read books?


Did Houston help other artists? Did she mentor young singers? Was she an attentive friend?

Watching the new Whitney movie, I thought of Mary Rodgers, daughter of a genius. Rodgers has said that she expected very little from her father, Richard Rodgers, who was severely limited as a human being. "He put all of his love into his music. I just learned to look for it there."

"I Wanna Dance with Somebody" is an extraordinarily awful biopic, and its problems start with its title. Was the song "I Wanna Dance" an important mission statement for Whitney, a key that could unlock the meaning of her life? I don't see the evidence. 

Since Whitney did not write her own material, it seems like her artistry was centered on the interpretation and the arranging (rearranging) of others' songs -- but the movie has almost nothing to say about this artistry. We don't see Whitney picking apart and re-building a score; for example, we don't see how Dolly's "I Will Always Love You" became Whitney's "I Will Always Love You." The song just "happens." That's a shame.

I think the best biopic I've seen is "Beautiful," the Carole King musical. That's a show about a writer with a heart and soul, and the songs seem to connect in powerful ways with the writer's actual life. (Funny how that happens -- when the singer is also the songwriter.) By contrast, any connections in the Whitney movie seem surface-level. Almost as if writing an SNL parody, the director Kasi Lemmons has Whitney rejecting the song "Why Does It Hurt So Bad" because she is young and her heart is intact. Later, having been mistreated by Bobby, Whitney decides she *will* interpret "Why Does It Hurt." That's because, she says, she now knows "what it all means." That's the level of insight we get from Lemmons's film.

The movie also seems superficial in its treatment of race. Early in the story, Robyn Crawford is visibly surprised by the bizarre costume a white producer has selected for "How Will I Know." Later, pushed by a radio interviewer, Whitney says, "I don't know how to sing Black. I don't know how to sing white. I know how to sing." This seems glib to me -- but the movie seems impressed with Whitney's statement. Isn't there more to say?

Finally, Lemmons announces, at the end, without any citations, that Whitney was "the greatest voice of her generation." Well, Audra McDonald is in her fifties, and Renee Fleming is just 63. I think they might feel surprised by Lemmons's breeziness....

Thumbs down.
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