I Wanna Dance With Somebody: Whitney Houston Biopic Lacks the Sparkle of its Subject

By Kim Hughes

Rating: C

Better and more candid than anticipated yet still weirdly underwhelming, big-budget Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance With Somebody achieves the filmmakers’ stated goal of shining a light squarely on the late American singer’s towering talent without camouflaging her also-towering struggles.

Perhaps because Houston’s life has been so exhaustively chronicled — by the mainstream media during her 1980s/90s ascent, by the tabloid press during her aughts-era drug-fueled slide, and via several documentaries since her death in 2012 at age 48 — I Wanna Dance With Somebody feels rote and somehow tired out of the gate. We know this story so well that all that’s left is to see how well it’s executed in this Hollywood iteration.

The answer is… pretty well, with committed performances across the board abetted by a sharp script by Anthony McCarten (Bohemian Rhapsody, The Theory of Everything) and unfussy, focused direction by Kasi Lemmons. Using Houston’s own vocals (of course, who the hell else can sing like that?), the film settles comfortably around star Naomi Ackie, who takes Houston from sunny, church-going daughter to glamourous superstar to trainwreck with no difficulty.

Starting with her late teen years, the film tells Houston’s story chronologically; her gift for gravity-free belting first evident in church, coached by her parents but especially her performer mother, Cissy (Tamara Tunie) who puts her front and centre at a club one night when famed music exec Clive Davis (a reliably solid Stanley Tucci) shows up, instantly becoming the centre of Whitney’s musical universe.

There is the quick ascension to fame and many, many showy performance sequences, from her television debut in 1983 on The Merv Griffin Show to her rightly famed Super Bowl national anthem performance in 1991. The film is bracketed at start and finish by her appearance at the 1994 American Music Awards where she sang the so-called vocally “impossible medley” of “I Loves You, Porgy” (from Porgy and Bess), “And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going” (from Dreamgirls) and her own hit “I Have Nothing” with such force it’s amazing the theatre walls didn’t collapse around her.

There is also considerable time devoted to her early and enduring relationship with Robyn Crawford (Nafessa Williams), portrayed here first as Houston’s lover, then confidant and best friend and finally, one of the few — amid wayward husband Bobby Brown (a disarmingly boyish Ashton Sanders) and spendthrift, judgemental father John Houston (Clarke Peters) — who seems to have Houston’s best interests at heart.

One might have expected the early lesbian aspect of Houston’s life, and her later cocaine use, to be downplayed given the official buy-in to the film from multiple stakeholders in the singer’s estate, including surviving family members. The frankness boosts the film’s credibility while planting the seed that had Houston landed in today’s ostensibly more accepting climate, things might have turned out differently.

Despite that liberating arc, the film just never takes flight, remaining rigorously tethered to a textbook biopic formula that does a disservice to the electrifying, complex, multifaceted subject at its centre. At no time and in no way are we offered a rumination (even a hint) on Houston’s inner dialogue or how she perceived herself.

One wonders if simple things like abandoning a chronological narrative to juggle time frames might have added sparkle and nuance to I Wanna Dance With Somebody which — like its protagonist and despite its moments of genuine dazzle — has nowhere to go but down.

I Wanna Dance With Somebody. Directed by Kasi Lemmons. Written by Anthony McCarten. Starring Naomi Ackie, Stanley Tucci, Ashton Sanders, Tamara Tunie, Nafessa Williams and Clarke Peters. Opens wide December 23.