{"id":14019,"date":"2022-12-23T22:00:40","date_gmt":"2022-12-24T03:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=14019"},"modified":"2023-12-12T06:12:11","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T11:12:11","slug":"i-wanna-dance-with-somebody-a-film-that-pleases-the-houston-estate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemadailyus.com\/?p=14019","title":{"rendered":"I Wanna Dance with Somebody, A Film That Pleases The Houston Estate"},"content":{"rendered":"

The biographical musical film I Wanna Dance with Somebody <\/i><\/b>is <\/i><\/b>based on the life and career of American pop singer and actress Whitney Houston. This is not the first time that the story about the singer nicknamed \u201cThe Voice\u201d has landed on the silver screen. Other cinematic enterprises tried to capture on film the life of the singer who managed to break the record held by The Beatles in consecutive number one singles. These include the 2015 telefilm Whitney<\/i><\/b> directed by Angela Bassett, the 2017 documentary Whitney: Can I Be Me<\/i><\/b> directed by Nick Broomfield and Rudi Dolezal, as well as the 2018 documentary Whitney<\/i><\/b> directed by Kevin Macdonald. But the biopic directed by Kasi Lemmons is the only one so far that won the praise of the Houston estate \u2014 which includes her sister-in-law and executor Pat Houston, the company that controls most of her musical rights, Primary Wave, and the man who made her the legend we know of today, Clive Davis.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

British actress Naomi Ackie plays Whitney Houston following her early days as a New Jersey choir girl who was trained by her mother Cissy Houston (Tamara Tunie) and was discovered by record producer Clive Davis (Stanley Tucci). The story continues with her father John Huston (Clarke Peters) acting as her manager and her covert girlfriend Robyn Crawford working as her creative director (Nafessa Williams).<\/p>\n

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The film further portrays Whitney Houston\u2019s turbulent marriage to Bobby Brown (Ashton Sanders) and their family life with their daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown (Bria Danielle Singleton). It is all intertwined with her most iconic career moments as an actress \u2014 for example with the film The Bodyguard<\/i><\/b> \u2014 and her biggest hits as a singer, that include I Will Always Love You<\/i> and of course the song that gives the title to the film, I Wanna Dance with Somebody.<\/i><\/p>\n

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Although director Kasi Lemmons joined forces with the creative team that brought the worldwide hit Bohemian Rhapsody<\/i><\/b> to the screen \u2014 including screenwriter-producer Anthony McCarten \u2014 I Wanna Dance with Somebody <\/i><\/b>doesn\u2019t have an inventive approach to the narrative. It comes across as a very didactic and cajoling reconstruction of Houston\u2019s biography. Elvis<\/i><\/b><\/a> (another music-star biopic that came out this year) had a more original way of unfolding the story, by handing the narration to the enigmatic Colonel Tom Parker who acted as Presley\u2019s manager.<\/p>\n

The new Whitney Houston film is nevertheless more audacious than its predecessors in exposing the issues in her life surrounding race: it shows how the singer was called \u201cOreo\u201d, it recreates the infamous scene at the Soul Train Music Awards where she was booed, and it features a radio interview at a Black station in which the DJ accused her music of being \u201ctoo white\u201d. An additional element that seems to be bolder than previous cinematic representations of Whitney Houston\u2019s life is her relationship with her best friend and business associate Robyn Crawford. I Wanna Dance with Somebody <\/i><\/b>explicitly portrays their relationship as a physical and sentimental one, also based on Crawford\u2019s memoir published in 2019 \u2014 although she had no involvement in the making of this film. In the Eighties the social stigma was strong when it came to public figures being homosexual; which is possibly why Houston chose to marry a man and become a mother, settling for a life that would please her public just as much as her parents.<\/p>\n

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Another fascinating character that jumps off the screen is Whitney Houston\u2019s mentor, who befittingly defined her as \u201cthe greatest contemporary female musical artist of her time.<\/i>\u201d He comes across as the rightful father figure who allows her to take flight, but who is also\u00a0 <\/span>earnestly concerned about her health and well-being. The Netflix documentary, Clive Davis: The Soundtrack Of Our Lives<\/i><\/b>, completes the picture of the 90 year old record executive, who played an integral role in the careers of luminaries like Janis Joplin, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Pink Floyd, and many others, putting Houston in the highest echelon. He rightly claims that Whitney Houston\u2019s music continues to stay with us, which is the most riveting part of I Wanna Dance with Somebody<\/i><\/b>. The films finds its peaks in the recreations of epochal performances, like her triumphalist rendering of The Star-Spangled Banner at the Super Bowl and \u201cThe Impossible Medley\u201d of I Loves You, Porgy<\/i>, And I Am Telling You I\u2019m Not Going<\/i> and I Have Nothing<\/i> at the American Music Awards. The entire film features twenty-two Houston classics that were adapted for the state-of-the-art sound of cinemas. These remixes were matched with Naomi Ackie\u2019s onscreen performance, who as a talented singer sung every note (that was not recorded), recreating in detail the expressions, pauses, breaths, giggles and gestures of Whitney Houston. Music editor John Warhurst produced the greatest magic of the film allowing Whitney Houston\u2019s voice to be channelled by Ackie\u2019s reenactment, amplifying and magnifying the original records of the best-selling American singer.<\/p>\n

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Whitney Houston has received many outstanding awards, she set numerous charts, her sales amounted to over 200 million records worldwide and several of her singles certified as Diamond. Despite Kasi Lemmons\u2019 obsolete storytelling, we are reminded of how music ran through Whitney Houston\u2019s veins and around her: her mother was Cissy Houston, her aunt was Dionne Warwick and her godmother was Aretha Franklin.<\/p>\n

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Therefore, while watching I Wanna Dance with Somebody<\/i><\/b>, <\/i>when audiences listen to Whitney Houston\u2019s voice it\u2019s impossible not to feel shivers running down their spines.<\/p>\n

Final Grade: B<\/p>\n

Check out more of Chiara\u2019s articles<\/a>.<\/p>\n