I wanna feel the HEAT … but I don’t.
On the contrary, the animatronic new Whitney Houston biopic “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” left me shivering from a gust of arctic air as it so clinically and lazily examines the tragic life of the famous singer.
I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY
Running time: 146 minutes. Rated PG-13. In theaters Dec. 23.
The incomparable Houston, who died in 2012 at the Beverly Hilton hotel of an accidental drowning caused by drug use, deserves a real cinematic movie — not this cheap filler you would have found on basic cable in 1998.
Naomi Ackie plays Houston starting from her early days in 1980s New Jersey as the promising teen daughter of Cissy Houston (Tamara Tunie), who is fatefully discovered by mega-producer Clive Davis (who is also, as it happens, a producer of this film) and soon becomes an international superstar with seven straight No. 1 hits — one more than The Beatles. In the end, we watch as she succumbs to hard drugs in order to shield herself from the pressures of fame and family. She died at just 48 years old.
Oddly, Davis (Stanley Tucci) is a much bigger character than Houston’s volatile husband Bobby Brown (the usually excellent Ashton Sanders in a static part) and mom Cissy. Audiences won’t show up expecting a Whitney/Clive two-hander, but that’s basically what they get.
The film also wades into later revelations that Houston was secretly bisexual. Early on as a rebel who refuses to wear dresses, she makes out with her best friend Robyn Crawford, played dweebishly by Nafessa Williams. The pair move in together, though the movie steers clear of the bedroom.
As their relationship intensifies and Whitney wants to employ Robyn, she’s told by her father and manager John — portrayed with the subtlety of the alien from “Alien” by Clarke Peters — “You want my blessing? Go out on dates — with young men.”
Although offended, Whitney does as she’s instructed, which leads to an unintentionally hilarious scene in which Robyn shouts, “You slept with Jermaine Jackson?!?” and then smashes plates like a dry-run of a Greek wedding.
Even though her sexuality is depicted, kinda, the movie drops the issue quickly, either because the filmmakers didn’t know how to handle it from there or the estate preferred to keep things approachably vague.
Same goes for Houston’s drug use. The movie never makes it clear when she first started using cocaine or at what point it became a problem. Who initially gave it to her? You won’t find out here. Out of nowhere, she’s suddenly a shaky and erratic addict.
Maybe the filmmakers figured the audience wouldn’t want to confront any of those tough topics for too long. So instead, they go gangbusters on the songs.
Several numbers are, in a dumb move, re-created from start to finish. Every second of “Greatest Love of All,” along with her renditions of “Home” on “The Merv Griffin Show,” “I Didn’t Know My Own Strength” on Oprah and her medley of “Porgy and Bess” and “Dreamgirls” at the 1994 American Music Awards, make the cut. That’s about 20 minutes of screen time for those four tunes alone. Plus, we experience bits of the title track, “I Will Always Love You,” her performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Super Bowl and more.
This movie feels endless.
Many of the musical sequences drag, unfortunately. The vocals are all actually Houston’s, but we never fully believe they’re coming out of Ackie’s mouth, as we did with Austin Butler in “Elvis” this summer, or during the electric “Bohemian Rhapsody” Live Aid scene with Rami Malek. The actress, who doesn’t look much like Houston to begin with, lacks her energy and star power.
Outside the disappointing musical moments, Ackie gives an acceptable turn … for a character other than Whitney Houston. That divine moment of transubstantiation, in which a performer appears to transform into a beloved icon before our eyes, never happens. It’s little more than a halfway decent impression.
Still, she can only do so much considering Kasi Lemmons’ soft-focus direction (during the songs, all she does is hypnotically pan the camera in semi-circles in front of the stage over and over) and Anthony McCarten’s screenplay that was ghost-written by Siri.
There’s certainly no art to McCarten’s script, which plays like an abrupt PowerPoint presentation of major events and hit singles coupled with dialogue that makes you dry heave. McCarten, who also wrote “Bohemian Rhapsody,” is everywhere lately. On Broadway, he’s got “A Beautiful Noise,” a musical about Neil Diamond, and the new play “The Collaboration,” about Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. He’s the Domino’s Pizza of this lifeless schlock and he guarantees delivery within 30 minutes.
Someday there will be a movie that lives up Houston’s enormous talent, drive and complicated, troubled life. “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” is not that movie.
