WHITNEY HOUSTON: I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY**

I said pretty much everything I wanted to say about Whitney Houston in my review of the two documentaries that came out after her death, Kevin MacDonald's WHITNEY and Nick Broomfield’s WHITNEY: CAN I BE ME? I felt the latter was particularly insightful about the problems Whitney faced due to her sexuality in a homophobic world; her persona as a post-racial artist in a highly racially charged world; and the less that ideal family life that certainly included drugs from the start, and potentially also sexual abuse. The docs were both good but both helped and hindered by lack of co-operation with the family.  By contrast, this new fictionalised biopic is both helped and hindered by the reverse.

Clive Davis, Whitney's record label CEO, is one of the producers on the film, and as played by Stanley Tucci is an avuncular witty and caring presence. No shit. The villains of the piece are her controlling and exploitative father (Clarke Peters), and the burden of expectations of an ever-greater entourage and family and public.  Bobby Brown is unlikeable as an abusive adulterer but Whitney's drug use is conveniently enabled by an anonymous white - natch - drug peddler. The film mostly proceeds as a series of set-piece performances that we are already intimately aware of, and while Naomie Ackie does a really great job imitating Whitney's facial expressions, it's just not the same as watching the old footage. The problem is that when you devote tens of minutes to music montages, there's very little space left for actual explorative dramatic writing, and even if there was, I'm not sure writer Anthony McCarten would be the man for the job, given his hackneyed  work here and on BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY.

I think anyone embarking on a project like this - or any artist interpreting a subject that has already been treated many times -  should ask themselves what they can bring to the table. What is their particular take - their particular insight? Or failing that, what is it that the medium of fiction film can bring that documentary can't? Well, clearly if we're just imitating Whitney's videos and concert performances that's low value add, if not value negative to watching the real footage. What a dramatic treatment COULD have brought is real insight into her state of mind, and the emotional toll of being closeted, hated by her own black peers, and exploited by her own family. I wanted less music and more drama. Still, you shouldn't review the film that wasn't made, just the one in front of you. And it's fine. Really fine. But the docs are better.

WHITNEY HOUSTON: I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY has a running time of 144 minutes and is rated PG-13. It was released last December. 

THE TWO POPES - BFI London Film Festival 2019 - Day Seven

I realise that all reviews are subjective reactions, but this will be even moreso than normal. I can't pretend to review a film about the two living Popes without referencing my own complicated history with the Catholic Church and deep feelings about both characters. What I can say is that director Fernando Meirelles (CITY OF GOD) and writer Anthony McCarten (DARKEST HOUR) have created a movie of rare compassion and good humour. The only criticism one might make is in the asymmetry of its interrogation - more of which later.

As the film opens, we see the death of John Paul II and the election of Benedictus XVI aka the old Cardinal Ratzinger.  We see this in brilliant visual-kinetic form, with quick cutting and sumptuous production design taking us into the theatre of the College of Cardinals and their ancient rituals.  It's an election fought between doctrinaires and reformers, and the conservatives win. Ratzinger is depicted then and throughout as vain, power-hungry, in love with the trappings of his office. He is German - so comes from the rich heart of the Catholic world.  His rival, the future Francis I, is a reformer, modest by nature, from the periphery of Catholicism - the poverty of rural Argentina.

We quickly move Benedictus to his moment of crisis. The Church is beset by scandals over the Vatican Bank, and most heinously the child sex abuse scandal.  It was Ratzinger's role in covering this up, in his role prior to being Pope, that made me cry when he was chosen.  He struck me as more concerned to save the reputation of the Church than to protect innocent children. And then of course he shocked us by announcing his retirement!  Not entirely unprecedented but shocking all the same.

This decision, and his alleged conversations with his chosen successor, form the meat of the film.  I have no idea if the two men met on such terms, or if Ratzinger ever had a change of heart that made him advocate for a reformer. I severely doubt it. But as presented, this is a deeply moving relationship.  At first, Ratzinger keeps his motives to himself, and keeps Francis at a distance, literally backing away from a hug.  But as the conversations develop we suddenly realise that we are moving into the sacrament of confession, mutually performed by the two priests.

It is posited that Francis is motivated by penance - for his collaboration with the totalitarian regime in Argentina when head of the Jesuit church there.  After this he has a change of heart, of conscience, is stripped of his power, and becomes a liberation theologist in the poorest parts of Argentina.  From conservative to quasi Marxist is quite the leap.  As Ratzinger so eloquently puts it, Francis must accept the mercy he believes the Church should embody.  He is absolved.  In this part of the story, told movingly in flashback by a simply marvellous Jonathan Pryce, I was equally impressed by Juan Minujin as his younger self. 

We then move to Ratzinger's confession. I am not sure what Mereilles' motivation was, but here is where we get the asymmetric interrogation. While we go through the emotional grind with Francis, we barely here Ratzinger's confession. The film almost skips over his handling of the child sex abuse scandal as if too appalled to go there or maybe - just maybe - too respectful of the office and its previous holder to accuse a Pope?  He too is absolved, and seems relieved. This is far less satisfying.

We then move to the film's final act.  Francis is elected, eschews the "cabaret" and sets about changing the Church. He speaks to climate change, reaches out to the poor, to refugees in Lampadusa.  And we are led to believe that his friendship continues with a comedy watch of the world cup final between Germany and Argentina at the end.

Overall, I found this to be a profoundly moving film, especially as regards the depiction of Francis.  When he is elected and moves to the balcony to make his first ever speech as Pope, I had tears in my eyes.  And yes, I know that Ratzinger was given an easy ride, but I would like to think that everyone is capable of redemption, forgiveness, and peace, and if this indeed why and how the previous Pope retired it brings me genuine happiness. I just wish I could believe it. 

TWO POPES has a running time of 126 minutes and is rated PG-13.  It played Telluride, Toronto and London 2019. It will have a limited theatrical release on November 27th before being released on Netflix on December 20th.

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

Freddie Mercury was a superlatively talented and charismatic musician who lived a raucous, dangerous life.  He was a bold artist - his pop videos referenced Njinsky, and Fritz Lang and leather clubs - he gave a white hair band a provocatively queer name - he was both in the closet and out - he's one of the most famous victims of AIDS but only admitted he'd contracted the disease late.   And more than that, Freddie remains fundamentally opaque.  He didn't talk much about his private boarding school childhood in India, hundreds of miles from his parents in Zanzibar. He didn't talk much about how they felt to be transported from wealth and warmth to suburban London, and how he felt as a gay teenager of strict Zoroastrian parents, whose religion forbids homosexuality.  Do we really know why he went solo in the early 80s?  Do we really know why he returned to the band?  Do we know how he felt when gay friends starting dying of AIDS, whether he took precautions or altered his behaviour, or how he felt when he succumbed?

No. And this is not the film to tell us either.  Instead, what we have here is a sanitised, banal, paint by numbers biopic that does no justice to the audacity of its subject, or the interest of his fans. It's all surface. All staged set-up. There's barely a conversation that doesn't show a simplistic version of how some hit song was written. This is the stuff of pantomime villains and white-washed heroes.  Most insultingly, the film portrays Freddie as unaware he was gay until the late 70s, as basically straight laced until led down the path of danger and disease in the 80s by the villlainous parasite Paul Prenter (Allan Leech - DOWNTON ABBEY).  Even when he does come out to his parents in an absurd last minute hook up with Jim Hutton on the DAY OF LIVE AID!!! there's no confrontation or consternation. It's all just tied up nicely with a bow so that the stakes can be at their highest for that concert. Oh yes, and he supposedly also told the band he was dying just before it and was worried his voice wouldn't hold up.

This is all palpable bollocks of course.  And one would've hoped that the surviving members of the band would've been better than settling old scores with the original reviewers of BoRhap, or the original record producer who wouldn't put it out as a single.  One might even have hoped that they would be more honest about their shagging and drinking, let alone Freddie's, rather than just the odd sly comment about Roger Taylor's extra-marital affairs.   And for heaven's sake, could any of this have been done with slightly more subtlety that the leaden dialogue by THE QUEEN's Peter Morgan and Anthony McCarten? Seriously this was little more than an afternoon TV Movie of the week.

The only thing that saves the movie - I'm afraid to say as he's apparently a despicable man - is Bryan Singer's visual styling - particularly an opening dynamic walk through the backstage of Live Aid, and a lovely shot that takes us into the band's tour bus. 

Rami Mallek doesn't act - he does an impersonation. A very good one of Freddie's accent and physical performance.  But he struggles with his prosthetic teeth and an impersonation is NOT a holistic acting performance. That said, Freddie and Queen were just so bloody good, that even seeing an impersonation  inspires a lot of nostalgia and feel-good singalong warmth.  But that doesn't make this by any stretch of the imagination an awards-worthy film.

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY has a running time of 134 minutes and is rated PG-13.  It is on global release.

THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING

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THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING is a well-acted but ultimately banal biopic of the famous physicist Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) as told from the perspective of his first wife Jane (Felicity Jones).  As it opens, the young couple meet at Oxford University in the 1960s and are immediately smitten with each other.  Almost simultaneous with their courtship over the first half hour of the film is the discovery that Stephen suffers from Motor Neurone disease with perhaps only two years left to live.  It is testament to Jane's courage that she refuses to be shut out of Stephen's life and drops her own studies to marry him, raise his children and nurse him as he makes his reputation as one of the great scientists of our age.  But as we move into the second half of the film, while they both clearly still love each other, the cracks are starting to show.  Jane, who has always been religious in contrast to Stephen's atheism, falls in love with her Church choir leader, an earnest widower who becomes a kind of surrogate husband and father with Stephen's apparent blessing.  And then Stephen, forced to have a tracheotomy, and before he gets the computer voice we have come to associate with him, falls for his physical therapist.