Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022)

Directed by Kasi Lemmons. Starring Naomi Ackie, Stanley Tucci, Nafessa Williams, Ashton Sanders, Clarke Peters, Tamara Tunie, Dave Heard. [PG-13]

Banal bio of the famous singer is so prefab you can smell the PVC shrink wrap. Ackie does an adequate job imitating Whitney Houston (even if there’s (wisely?) no attempt to replace the voice), but she’s unable to inject verve, nerve, joy or pathos into the trope-heavy narrative, dutifully hitting the big pop culture events without a lick of the singularity her superfans had come to expect—this is an anonymous talent trapped in trite, sketchy material. Director Kasi Lemons and writer Anthony McCarten botch the film’s human portrait, engendering too little empathy and understanding for its subject in order to avoid making the tabloid escapades, sanitized drug issues, and Whitney’s ugly battles with Bobby Brown something besides the sort of trashy spectacles that inspire embarrassed laughter (during those spots, she might as well have been played by one of her late-night sketch impersonators, like Debra Wilson or Maya Rudolph). The subtitle seems to have been chosen at random among her catalog of popular hits: there’s hardly any dancing here, and none of the freeing ecstasy and romance suggested by the song’s lyrics. Whitney’s longtime record producer, Clive Davis, and her sister-in-law, Pat Houston, are among the movie’s many, many producers.

40/100