Greg and Zanna watch a movie rich with repetition.
SCORES
Quantity of drug busts: 5
Quantity of drug busts: 5
Quantity of drug busts: 5
SHE SAW
Bury me in Andra Day's soulful vocals and leave me there to
die in melodic euphoria. That is how I want to go. I fell deep down an Andra Day rabbit hole when writing this review and I have no desire to get out of it. I only learned of Day last month, when she won the Golden Globe for her portrayal of Billie Holiday in The United States Vs Billie Holiday. It's her first-ever acting role and she has since been nominated for an Academy Award, so there's no question it's a remarkable performance. Unfortunately, it's in an otherwise lacking film.
Greg and I spent the duration of the car ride home picking apart everything that's wrong with this movie. Most of its problems could've been fixed by cutting out at least a third. I can understand why film-maker Lee Daniels left in so many full-length performances of Holiday songs - Day sings them so well and with an incredible likeness to Holiday's very distinctive jazz vocals - they are perfection, but few add anything narratively to the story.
It isn't a biopic really: it's about a specific aspect of Holiday's life when the United States Government wanted to take her down because her song Strange Fruit was stoking the fires of the civil rights movement. It's an important, fascinating and film-worthy story but in its quest to include what feels like every real-life run-in Holiday had with "the Feds" the film feels repetitive to the detriment of character complexity. I would've liked to understand Holiday more. The film portrays her as a drug addict with intimacy issues but rarely seeks to reveal why.