I Wanna Dance with Somebody

I Wanna Dance with Somebody

The joyous, emotional, heartbreaking celebration of the life and music of Whitney Houston, the greatest female R&B pop vocalist of all time. Tracking her journey from obscurity to musical superstardom.

  • Released: 2022-12-21
  • Runtime: 146 minutes
  • Genre: Drama, History, Music
  • Stars: Naomi Ackie, Ashton Sanders, Stanley Tucci, Nafessa Williams, Lance A. Williams, Tamara Tunie, Clarke Peters, Daniel Washington, JaQuan Malik Jones, Kris Sidberry, Bailee Lopes, Bria Danielle Singleton, Adrian M. Mompoint, Coffey, Stew Replogle, Chanel Rose Connor, Sean Amos, Jon F. Merz
  • Director: Kasi Lemmons
 Comments
  • Elvis-Del-Valle - 29 December 2023
    Very summarized, but it's a good movie.
    10 years after her death, comes this film that tells the story of the beloved Whitney Houston from her rise to her fall. Like other films about musical idols such as La Bamba, Selena or Elvis, this film once again raises the question of whether being a musical artist is a blessing or a curse due to the different cases that there have been of famous artists who reached the top , but they died in unexpected circumstances before they could reach old age. This film offers a tour of Whitney Houston's life that reveals several details for those who are not very familiar with her or who only knew her from The Bodyguard with Kevin Costner. The film does well in wanting to tell the entire story, but the difficulty is that there is a clear limitation when trying to narrate all the events. The film is certainly a summary of Whitney's entire life because it shows that there are many things that were not explored and were left out of her. That is understandable, since we are talking about a story that lasted around 16 years and it is very difficult to be able to tell all that in a two and a half hour film. Possibly, it would have had to be a film of around four hours to give more details. Still, it's a pretty respectable film that made an effort to focus on Houston's life from her perspective. It is a truly amazing film because of how it was produced and the soundtrack composed of Houston's songs is something that also takes on great relevance in the film. It can be concluded by saying that I Wanna Dance With Somebody is not the complete story that one would expect to see, due to how extensive the real story is, but it is an amazing film that serves to once again remember one of the most popular artists in history. My final rating for this movie is a 9/10.
  • hldbyrenee - 1 September 2023
    Very poorly made
    Why was this movie even made? The movie feels very rushed, poor edited and I think the director had no idea who Whitney really was. They could have done so much more with it. They left out too many things that are important to the story, and also for character building. It skips forward years at the time with some flashbacks of some important things that happened in between. They could have give Whitney, Robyn, Bobby and little Bobbi so much more depth. It's not the whole story and doesn't do Whitney justice. A missed opportunity and I hope someone will make a real biopic, because that's what she deserved!
  • studioAT - 2 August 2023
    Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody
    This is fine.

    Shouldn't it have been better though.

    As others have said, this feels like reading a Wikipedia page about the much loved and much missed star that has then been turned over to a screenwriter and later cast to bring to life.

    This leads to a rather wooden affair, and is often for me lacking in a little bit of heart and soul.

    It does certain things well, the ambition is clearly there for this to be great and do the great lady justice, but ultimately it buckles where other interpretations/films about big name music stars haven't.

    So overall, fine, but it could and should have been better.
  • r96sk - 10 January 2023
    A well done flick, I'd say
    A well done flick, I'd say.

    I didn't even know this existed until I was invited a week or two back to go watch it, which is a surprise as I'd imagine a Whitney Houston biopic would've got enough hype that I would've seen it mentioned around the web - perhaps I just happened to miss it? Either way, I'd very much recommend 'Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody'.

    I'm no Houston brainiac but of course knew of her top songs and unfortunate personal issues, I feel like the film does a commendable job at covering all aspects - the pacing is top notch, in my opinion. I'd imagine it takes liberties with the truth, as per for this genre, here and there, but that doesn't bother me much if so.

    Naomi Ackie is terrific in the lead role, quite the first performance of her's to watch on my part. I hope to see more! The rest of the cast, from Stanley Tucci to Ashton Sanders to Tamara Tunie to Nafessa Williams to Clarke Peters, particularly the latter, are also very good throughout.

    I found the run time to be spot on, while the music is - as you'd expect - excellent. Houston sure did make a tonne of hits!
  • econstudier - 6 January 2023
    Solid performances but uneven story and limited songs
    I really wanted to love this movie because there was no one like Whitney Houston. And Naomi did as well as possible trying to be her. Sadly, she just doesn't have that "wow" factor to make you think she is Whitney. For example, Rami Malek did make me think I was watching Freddie Mercury. The charm and style that Whitney won over the world with is just not present here.

    The songs are great and I realize not all of them could be played in their entirety. But I mean they could not even play the Star Spangled Banner in full? That was Whitney's greatest performance. Yet they played an AMA medley for 6 minutes that few of us ever saw or remembered.

    Lastly, the writer and director clearly wanted it known that Whitney was bisexual, which many of us never knew. It was really hammered home in the movie but I am not sure why. She had a drug problem but was that her own fault or her husband's? Too many weaknesses in the script make this only an average movie.
  • bethduga - 3 January 2023
    Critics are wrong - Best movie of the year!
    I went with a girlfriend and we had the BEST time. I highly recommend seeing it in the theater as we felt like we were at a concert! We laughed, sang, danced, and cried. It was beautifully done and the actress that played Whitney deserves an Oscar. I read the reviews of the movie and couldn't disagree more. Maybe the plot was a little rushed but it's totally understandable as they wanted to fit in more music. Also, the negative reviews comment on how it felt like the movie was just like some of the other recent movies that have come out about superstars. Unfortunately, drug addiction happened to lots of great artists, but no other movie like this has come close to capturing the music like this one did. I don't know why there hasn't been more hype about Naomi Ackles. The way she changed her voice to match Whitney's EXACTLY is magic. They didn't look a lot alike but there were several scenes in the movie where her mannerisms really made you feel as though it was Whitney. If nothing else, the critics need to give her the accolades she deserves.
  • parksiet - 31 December 2022
    Painfully generic
    Can we please stop making all musical biopics the exact same movie? I'm so bored of the template. Instead of coming off as a celebration of Whitney Houston's life and career, I found "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" to be a hollow attempt at re-creating the success of "Bohemian Rhapsody". The strategy the filmmakers took on? Re-make "Bohemian Rhapsody" beat-for-beat with a Whitney Houston focus instead of Queen. This movie is painfully generic, it really disappointed me. And it's not even like the movie itself is bad, it is just that we've seen so many music biopics recently - and they all have the same story! Say what you will about "Elvis" but at least Baz Luhrmann tried to do something different with that one stylistically. Here, everything was bland, there was nothing to make this stand out from the crowd. The generic nature of this film would be fine if this was a better film, but unfortunately because this is so similar to other music biopics, it just comes off as repetitive and inferior in both performance and filmmaking.

    Naomi Ackie is fine as Whitney, but she never really elevated the material off the page or made me believe she was Whitney. Instead I just saw her trying to be the next Rami Malek and Austin Butler, and personally I don't think she is quite on that level yet as an actor.

    The movie also felt very shallow, it never went deep into exploring Whitney's life, instead just went from scene to scene checking off the boxes of major events in Whitney's life, carefully following the template of the music biopic. The script really was not anything special, and honestly I found it didn't work as a narrative at all. There was no conflict, no tension, nothing to keep me invested as an audience member. It is true to life, Whitney was indeed very talented and her talent was recognized from the start, but in a story you need your protagonist to go through some sort of struggle. I never felt Whitney ever hit any obstacles here, aside from minor relationship and substance-abuse struggles that it barely touched on. It literally just felt like the movie was going through the motions, complete with a finale that featured an iconic performance from Whitney.

    I'm sorry, I know I am really ripping into this film, but I am just so disappointed that it did nothing to make itself stand out from the rest of music biopics. It felt like no one behind the camera was trying to make it special. Frankly, Whitney Houston deserves so much better.

    I'm sure for most audience members, this will be enjoyable! It has an A cinemascope and a very high audience score on rotten tomatoes, so I am definitely in the minority. It is a very likeable movie, I just took major issues with how generic it was. I've seen this same movie countless times before, I'm just so bored with the format. The movie was good, just good, and I wanted it to be great. It should have been great. At least the music was...
  • Birminghamukengland - 30 December 2022
    4 words: Naomi Ackie Oscar winner.
    Wow, I loved every minute of this.

    Brilliant direction, storytelling and the acting was first class from all.

    I loved that they used Whitney's voice as NO ONE can match it, ever. It all flowed flawlessly. I also loved that the songs were performed in full.

    The actor who played Whitney was breathtakingly gifted and embodied her. She totally deserves every award going.

    The cinema was full and everyone was crying at the end.

    I didn't realise that Whitney was gay, what a terrible shame that due to Christian fundamentalism, discrimination and bigotry she couldn't spend her life with her soul mate. If she had, I'm sure she'd still be here singing with her unique and God given voice and living an abundant life.

    I will see this again.

    Awesome film and an excellent tribute to the most talented performer of all time.
  • cvill59 - 29 December 2022
    Naomi Ackie became THE VOICE
    I had hesitations seeing this movie. Mostly because of the Naomi Ackie casting in a sense of how she doesn't look nothing like Whitney Houston. I literally kicked myself for making that a reasoning after seeing the movie. Naomi may not look like Whitney, but she truly embodied WHITNEY ELIZABETH HOUSTON. From her mannerism, quips, speaking voice & her body movement when she performed on stage as Whitney, she definitely did her homework to know how to become THE VOICE. Had few criticism of the movie, mostly the second act of of film of just cramming in alot, but see it for Naomi Ackie's performance.
  • martinshawn-62371 - 27 December 2022
    Great film, enjoyed every minute
    The music was awesome and the film entertaining. Even though the film had a 2.5 hour run time, time flew by. Some additional character development would have been nice. Robyn and Mr. Houston were probably the most developed even though Robyn in real life was not as broad shouldered and butchy as the actress who played her. The real Robyn was cute and pretty tiny. John Houston was portrayed as strong, but also careless with Whitney's money. Whiitney had to take on long tours to help restore her finances due to her father's out-of-control spending.

    You will enjoy this movie if you go. So nice to see Whitney in her prime scoring hits. It was time well invested. Oh how I miss her incredible voice and strong stage presence.