Whitney biopic with no Whitney Houston

Movie title: Whitney Director: Angela Bassett Writer: Shem Bitterman Stars: Yaya DaCosta, Arlen Escarpeta, Yolonda Ross * I was extremely excited when Lifetime announced plans to create a biopic about the life of Whitney Houston and filled with pride when I hear actress Angela Basset would direct the biopic. Angela and Whitney shared a friendship and were co-stars in ‘Waiting to Exhale’. I knew that Lifetime didn’t have the best track record when it comes to biopics and tends to sensationalise and over-dramatise some of the darkest moments of celebrities. But I was confident that, with Angela in the director’s seat; the biopic would be a tribute fitting the most talented female artist of all time. You see, I loved Whitney and I do believe that we who hanged on to her every note deserve a definitive account of her astonishing life, ground-breaking career, and tragic death. However, after a half an hour of watching Yaya DaCosta’s struggle to portray a character as complex as Whitney and her horrible lip-syncing, it was clear that Lifetime and Angela got it all wrong, in miserable fashion. Also, anyone who followed Whitney’s life and read Cissy’s ‘Remembering Whitney’ would know that Cissy was a strong and in-control mother, who was fiercely protective of her kids and that Whitney often avoided her mother in a bid to not deal with her disapproval. The film is in worrisome and confusing contrast when it comes to portraying Whitney’s relationship with her mother. Instead the younger Whitney comes across as attention seeking, vain and diva-like. Cissy’s book and past Whitney interviews would suggest that she truly was a candle in the wind, a skinny young girl with this huge voice, who only wanted to sing and who often struggled with having a hundred-thousand people screaming her name and the paparazzi attention. Also, the title is deceiving. Whitney as a title isn’t fitting for a film that mostly focuses on her troubled marriage to Bobby Brown. There is little about Whitney’s rise to fame and just way too many raunchy sex scenes. While it can be argued that the biopic was about her marriage to Bobby, it should be known that for us to understand Whitney the star and wife, we need to know Nippy the little girl who started as back-up singer for her mother and who just wanted to sing. The narrative Whitney, America’s sweetheart, the world’s Voice, the troubled woman who struggled with drug use, the mother and wife as well as her return with ‘I Look to You’ are all missing. With all those integral elements missing, Lifetime’s ‘Whitney’ is without Whitney. Coupled with the bad acting, the movie is a complete mess. Also, while Deborah Cox is extremely talented, she completely struggled with singing Whitney’s songs with the same emotion. Even the Whitney music has no Whitney.