Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody

Naomi Ackie shines as the iconic Whitney Houston while everything surrounding her leads to a straightforward musical biopic that falls short of greatness.

Anytime the topic of who are some of the greatest female pop artists of all time is, one of the definitive answers no one will ever deny is Whitney Houston. With six Grammys to her name and a mezzo-soprano voice that’ll never be outmatched, it’s no wonder she’s one of her generation's best-selling artists/ vocalists, with seven consecutive number-one singles to prove that point right. You can’t imagine anyone else singing “How Will I Know,” “I’m Every Woman,” and her incredible synonymous cover of “I Will Always Love You.” She even took the time to become an actress, showcasing her work in "The Bodyguard," "Waiting to Exhale," and being the saving grace in the disposable remake of "Sparkle."

“Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody” sets out to give the world a glimpse of her extravagant life from the begging of the mid-80s to her accidental death at the age of 48 in early 2012 with another famous musician to get the biopic treatment from Kasi Lemmons to show what we’ve been missing for a decade now.

Back in 1983 in New Jersey, a teenage Whitney (Naomi Ackie) sings in her church choir run by her gospel-singing mother Cissy (Tamara Tunie), who expects her to be a better singer than she is from the head, heart, and gut. After faking a sore throat, she encourages Whitney to take center stage and perform a cover of “The Greatest Love of All” since record producer Clive Davis (Stanley Tucci) is in attendance at a New York nightclub. It was a performance so impressive that Davis decided to give Whitney a record deal with Arista Records, with her first significant appearance on "The Merv Griffin Show." Since then, she has experienced her powers as an artist through love, fame, and releasing exciting songs to dance the night away.

Only some were on board with the idea of a movie based on Houston since some thought she had gone through enough or didn't find a film interesting when we already had TV specials to detail everything. Chronicling her life from the rise of stardom to her downfall throughout this runtime right under two and a half hours, "Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody" couldn’t get to the compelling stage of enjoyment from this fan.

Anyone who is familiar with Whitney's life will enter this expecting to see her first taste of success, her notorious marriage to New Edition bad boy Bobbie Brown (Ashton Sanders from "Moonlight"), and her well-publicized drug use that has been featured prominently on news and magazine front pages. Even this doesn’t shy away from touching on the critics calling her and her music “not black enough,” hearing the mixed reactions when her name was announced at the Soul Train Music Awards or money problems between her and her father based on her success over the years. 

For playing the legendary artist, it wasn’t the easiest job for British actor Naomi Ackie to take on, someone I wasn't too familiar with before she was outside her brief role in "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker." And though she doesn’t look like her, that probably won't matter when she nails the late artist's mannerisms and style when on stage on-screen, even when she isn't singing her music for the most part (nobody has a voice like the real-life Whitney let’s be realistic). This wasn’t a performance I’ll go as far as to say she completely disappeared and became Whitney, but you can see she’s really giving it her all throughout, carrying this entire film on her shoulders from becoming the bottom of the barrel. Literally, you can’t take your eyes off her. Ackie was good to where I don’t see her landing a Best Actress nomination. 

There’s also Stanley Tucci as Clive Davis (his real-life counterpart is an executive producer), who has seen the good in Whitney’s heart and is likable since he’s supportive. Clarke Peters is essentially the film’s greedy villain as Whitney’s father/ manager John. And Ashton Sanders is a great young actor; he was miscast as Bobby Brown, and he wasn't as believable as Whitney’s ex-husband because the chemistry with Ackie didn't work.

But despite Ackie‘s effort to make us believe she’s becoming her and the music element, it's still a straightforward musical biopic missing the element of pizzazz to lose momentum after the hour mark. Because when we know Whitney’s music as being full of energy and spirit, this film doesn’t have that to make it stand out in its dramatic moments. Writer Anthony McCarten is no stranger to writing films based on real people. He penned the screenplays for "The Theory of Everything," "Darkest Hour," and one of the most well-known music biopics recently, "Bohemian Rhapsody." Does it lead to a bland script at hand? Kind of. Anyone who has read about her on Wikipedia or in a documentary will understand the essentials of what she goes through, and Lemmons and McCarten merely reiterated what most people already knew about her, cramming in as much as they could. I didn’t know about her sexuality, hinting she had a relationship with her BFF Robyn Crawford (Nafessa Williams). Though they could've played it up a bit more. 

Coming from someone who wasn’t a big fan of Lemmons’s previous biopic "Harriet," she goes about rushing some moments that didn't leave room to remember when spanning through the years and questioning how Whitney got from here. From not caring about the romance between her and Bobby Brown or how they shot her fantastic rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner'' at Super Bowl XXV. A performance so great, she practically ruined it for everyone else to perform because she nailed it with perfection. Some of them felt like vignettes to create a movie; those moments are just there to take notes before a quiz. But it skips over essential factors when dealing with her drug problem, especially the infamous Diane Sawyer interview or that reality show ultimately pushed away.

Nothing digs deep in Lemmons’ direction, as it can sometimes appear as a big-budget Lifetime television movie. If you look at Elvis, one of the year's biggest surprises, that wasn’t to everyone’s liking, but Baz Luhrmann injected some unexpected energy to give to the king of rock n roll life that doesn’t play to the biopic rule book. Here, she does pay tribute to the icon by playing the hits and all, but it felt like this was playing it safe in a frustrating fashion. Even when the finale hits on a high note with a recreation of her 1994 American Music Awards performance, that might’ve been too little too late for what we should’ve gotten the past two hours. I feared this kind of movie when I first heard about it and at least gave it a chance to be different from everything else we’ve seen, but this made me want to watch the 2018 Kevin Macdonald documentary to truly know who she is.

“Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody” should've strived to be unique, but it led to another underwhelming by-the-numbers Hollywood biopic that left me wanting more. It’s worth watching for Ackie alone for her fully committed performance as Houston, yet for a film I wanted to walk away hoping to make an impact on me as a fan, this rarely did its subject justice for something that’s merely okay.