The Reel Review
Unlike 2016’s Whitney: Can I Be Me?, this is the Whitney Houston documentary that WAS sanctioned by the Houston estate, that follows the rise, and demise, of the enormously talented music superstar. But if you are expecting a flurry of fun music videos and a sugarcoating of Houston’s drug-addled later years, think again. Yes, the film uses reams of archival footage to hit on the high notes of Houston’s illustrious career, but writer/director Kevin Macdonald (Marley, The Last King of Scotland) also delivers a deeper, darker, stinging indictment of Houston’s own family, using their own interviews to reveal some wretched individuals who exploited, scored illegal drugs for and stole millions of dollars from Whitney during her career, and one that even allegedly sexually molested her as a child.
Macdonald’s documentary is exceptionally thorough and has plenty of “a ha” moments – like what sparked Houston’s sudden infatuation with Bobby Brown and later, why Houston insisted on dragging her young daughter on tour with her. Where the movie falls a bit short is in its distracting jump-cut inserts of the era’s news events, ruining some of the more poignant moments. But the film does deliver some lump-in-your-throat moments, and succeeds, at least partly, in salvaging Houston’s reputation, explaining the motives behind Whitney’s sad self-destruction prior to her death in 2012 at the age of 48.
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