Nina

Probably only 25 minutes that I'm watching this biopic about one of my idols:Nina Simone -> "What a bad television film"."A disaster" ... Zoe Saldana, clearly not up to the character! The allusions to Nina; a revolutionary musician are too few"... I don't care about Mrs Simone torments at the end of her life ! Mostly her relationship with her domestic/manager. (If at least it was "done properly). Plus, all the reproductions of her interviews and concerts : "We do not talk about it "... The film budget is what? $ 200 or something ... Roughly speaking, this full-length feature is a flop ... Let's watch a good documentary :)

The high ratings must be from people unfamiliar with Nina Simone. The makeup looks like Saldana has bad skin. Saldana's acting is passable. But the film is just boring. Saldana's singing lacks the depth of Simone.

Why a 6? There are few performers that can captivate an audience. Nina Simone was one of those performer. It's a crime, no sin, the same cannot be said of her biography. The first biography I was not invested in the character. The treatment of Mississippi Burning best describes this movie. Power, hate and anger best describes the song. It is also one of Nina's iconic song, brushed over barely a mention. The best description of the movie: brushed over. Why the 6? I believed Zoe Saldana was incapable of portraying a powerful woman as Nina Simone; I was wrong. Is the movie worth watching for her performance? Sadly No. Nina deserved a better treatment of her life.

After the big hoo-ha about how bad this film is, in particular because of Zoe Saldana's casting, I decided to give this movie a shot.

I know virtually nothing about Nina Simone's life, but this film does not want to portray what her life was during her prime. Instead it relies on itty bitty pieces of dialogue during interviews and conversations with Nina's old friend Richard Pryor. It is set during the last decade of her life, when she is mentally ill, unstably alcoholic and very difficult to tolerate. Clifton (David Oyelowo), the nurse at the mental hospital where she is interred, takes her in, looks after her and eventually becomes her manager.

The real problem with this movie is, glaringly, the time period of Nina's life. It's not a good one, and very little happens in the movie. We start her off as a little girl defying racial segregation so that her parents can sit in the front row. Nothing else is shown of her rise to fame and struggles, which makes the film feel very empty.

One thing I really didn't like is the erasure of Clifton's homosexuality. Although he and Nina are not seen intimate with each other (at one point she calls him the F word when he refuses to have sex with her) there is a small implication. Why couldn't they show everyone he was gay?

The last thing is of course Zoe Saldana as Nina. I personally feel the criticism (and it was extremely scornful) was very unfair. She did the best with what she was given, and she should be praised for it. The problem is not the color of her skin, its the age. She is supposed to be in her sixties, and yet Saldana is actually younger than David Oyelowo! They really couldn't find an older actress?

At times the movie was painfully boring, badly paced and perhaps unintentionally funny. 5 out 10.

So, I'll try to not include the controversy I heard about Star Trek's Zoe Saldana, playing the Infamous Nina Simone, although that's what made me interested in buying the ticket.

Overall, Saldana's performance was just OK. It's not the worse thing I've ever seen, it's not the best performance I've ever seen. It's not a milestone in her acting career, unlike her co-star David Oyelowo's magnificent turn as Doctor Martian Luther King Jr. in the movie, Selma. Mike Epps made an interesting cameo as Richard Pryor in the movie which left me something more than Saldana as Simone.

Nina is a focus on the last eight or so years of Simone's life, which was odd as Saldana (and the make up job they did on her) did not convince me she was a 70 year old woman. Mainly, it centers around the relationship Nina had with her new manager, Clifton Henderson.

It's another one of these films that tells us more about the type of personality the artist is rather than anything about the person's life. It's similar to Don Cheadle's take on Miles Davis in the film Miles Ahead, but that film had some magic in it that this movie does not.

Saldana and the film did an OK job letting us know the type of artist Nina Simone was, but you did not feel the passion behind it. I know it's near impossible to create a motion picture about Nina that would visually do what Simone could do with her musical talents, but I did not feel any effort towards it at all.

So overall, at the moment Saldana still has playing the most ionic woman in Sci-Fi on the top of her resume, while playing the greatest singer of all time will not even register. The make-up was fine and her voice was satisfying, but like I said I was not expected her to sound like Nina Simone, but this movie is not passionate like her music.