Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody

"I will always love you."

No matter that the bio of Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody is riddled with pop-singer-tragic-bout with drugs, leading to her death because she remains the highest grossing singer of all time, not bad when you consider she keeps the fame fellowship with Barbra, Aretha, and Judy.

From Gospel to R & B, the Jersey-girl Whitney gradually becomes known as "The Voice." Therein lies a potential rub in the picture as the glamorous Naomi Ackie, an acceptable singer but apparently qualified to lip-synch only to Houston's transcendent voice. Knowing this before I entered the theater, I was won over within minutes: Ackie's lip-synching is flawless, the best I have ever seen. Houston's cool modulation and momentous key changes are here in reality.

I fretted not, for I accepted Ackie as Whitney, looks and voice, in a stunning interpretation of the pop princess turned queen. In a veritable flash of a moment after being discovered at Sweetwater's, she is shepherded by the estimable Arista Records president Clive Davis (Stanley Tucci in his most urbane role ever) through her career, respectful as he was about what she liked to sing, and uncanny in offering her songs that catapulted her to fame.

When Davis introduces her on The Merv Griffin Show, she stops hearts with "Home" from The Wiz and allows director Kasi Lemmons to set up the operative heart-breaking motif of her longing for a home life that Bobby Brown (Ashton Sanders-remember him from Moonlight?) will never give her.

Whitney's character arc is well known from "America's Sweetheart" (an appellation she hated) to drug-addled has-been, not unlike Winehouse and Spears. (Her unconventional love with Robyn Crawford (Nafessa Williams) brought her misery as well). Because so many singers, male and female, fell under the sway of narcotics, it's possible this biopic has been undersubscribed because of the almost cliched story line.

In addition, Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody downplays the abusive role Bobby Brown, probably because of his attorneys threatening lawsuits. Although I am uncomfortable with graphic violence on the screen, some of it would have given an authentic edge to her troubled story. As would have scenes depicting her actual encounter with drugs.

This Whitney biopic may soften the effects of her addictions, but it never fails in featuring and interpreting the music that brought wealth and fame. Kudos to Naomi. Not so to the drug overdose that led to her drowning.

Take heart, this story lingers frequently on full songs in her real voice. It can't get better than that.

I was astonished at the simplicity and pure lack of creativity and imagination with this made for TV movie. It literally goes from A to B, copying and pasting all the way. Nothing unique to see here.

All good bio pics don't dare tell the whole story. It is just too difficult to make something great when you have so much to say. So they find the magic within. That micro story. And they make magic out of that. This film couldn't be bothered with that. So just painted by numbers, doing a very formulaic blah blah of nothingness.

Whitney was an amazing artist. One who deserved only the best. But all she got was a low rated TV Movie. A really tragic story.

That said, the actress did act. She was very good. I just wish they had done the right thing and given her someone who could have found her true magic with an intelligent story and more creative direction.

Can we please stop making all musical biopics the exact same movie? I'm so bored of the template. Instead of coming off as a celebration of Whitney Houston's life and career, I found "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" to be a hollow attempt at re-creating the success of "Bohemian Rhapsody". The strategy the filmmakers took on? Re-make "Bohemian Rhapsody" beat-for-beat with a Whitney Houston focus instead of Queen. This movie is painfully generic, it really disappointed me. And it's not even like the movie itself is bad, it is just that we've seen so many music biopics recently - and they all have the same story! Say what you will about "Elvis" but at least Baz Luhrmann tried to do something different with that one stylistically. Here, everything was bland, there was nothing to make this stand out from the crowd. The generic nature of this film would be fine if this was a better film, but unfortunately because this is so similar to other music biopics, it just comes off as repetitive and inferior in both performance and filmmaking.

Naomi Ackie is fine as Whitney, but she never really elevated the material off the page or made me believe she was Whitney. Instead I just saw her trying to be the next Rami Malek and Austin Butler, and personally I don't think she is quite on that level yet as an actor.

The movie also felt very shallow, it never went deep into exploring Whitney's life, instead just went from scene to scene checking off the boxes of major events in Whitney's life, carefully following the template of the music biopic. The script really was not anything special, and honestly I found it didn't work as a narrative at all. There was no conflict, no tension, nothing to keep me invested as an audience member. It is true to life, Whitney was indeed very talented and her talent was recognized from the start, but in a story you need your protagonist to go through some sort of struggle. I never felt Whitney ever hit any obstacles here, aside from minor relationship and substance-abuse struggles that it barely touched on. It literally just felt like the movie was going through the motions, complete with a finale that featured an iconic performance from Whitney.

I'm sorry, I know I am really ripping into this film, but I am just so disappointed that it did nothing to make itself stand out from the rest of music biopics. It felt like no one behind the camera was trying to make it special. Frankly, Whitney Houston deserves so much better.

I'm sure for most audience members, this will be enjoyable! It has an A cinemascope and a very high audience score on rotten tomatoes, so I am definitely in the minority. It is a very likeable movie, I just took major issues with how generic it was. I've seen this same movie countless times before, I'm just so bored with the format. The movie was good, just good, and I wanted it to be great. It should have been great. At least the music was...

If you can overlook the fact that she looks nothing like Whitney Houston, Naomi Ackie manages the impressive task of channeling the icon in a manner that feels both authentic and respectful. My problem with this overlong 2022 biopic is the Wikipedia-level approach that director Kasi Lemmons and screenwriter Anthony McCarten took in telling Houston's story with one familiar scene or performance moving to the next with little sense of dramatic transition. It comes as no surprise that McCarten wrote the similarly elliptical "Bohemian Rhapsody". Some moments (like the "How Will I Know?" video and the national anthem at the Super Bowl) were captured faithfully and with conviction by Ackie who lip-syncs to Houston quite effectively. Other moments felt like they belonged on Lifetime with honest revelations few and far between.

Let's start with the most important fact: Naomi Ackie kills it as Whitney Houston in "I Wanna Dance with Somebody." When her casting was announced, some were put off by their lack of close physical resemblance. No matter: Ackie handily disappears into the role. She is particularly expert in capturing the cadence of Whitney's speech, conveying her fiercely independent personality in all its charisma and occasional prickliness.

This is a movie that puts Whitney's career front and center, with a special emphasis on her relationship with Arista records founder Clive Davis. Stanley Tucci makes for an impressively spot-on Davis, although perhaps his portrayal is a bit too reverent. The scene where he confronted her over her spiraling drug addiction was tough to watch. I appreciated the lack of cheap psychological gimmicks to explain away her troubles.

Whitney's important, long-lasting lesbian relationship with creative director Robyn Crawford is finally given its fair shake here. Crawford is a deeply fascinating figure in her own right, and their scenes together pop. Apparently, Crawford has written a book on her experiences and I'm very curious to check it out.

The musical highlight is the near superhuman medley of "I Loves You Porgy", "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" and "I Have Nothing" from the 1994 American Music Awards. Whitney's original voice is thankfully used for the singing parts, as if any other choice was possible for the greatest vocalist of the 20th century!

Music biopics do seem to bring out a special kind of snobbery and faux-cleverness from critics at times. Were you really not expecting to see Whitney singing in church or signing her first record deal? These are the facts of her life! They are told beautifully and compellingly here.