The United States vs. Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday spent much of her career being adored by fans. In the 1940s, the government targeted Holiday in a growing effort to racialize the war on drugs, ultimately aiming to stop her from singing her controversial ballad, "Strange Fruit."
- Released: 2021-03-31
- Runtime: 131 minutes
- Genre: Drama, History, Music
- Stars: Andra Day, Trevante Rhodes, Garrett Hedlund, Leslie Jordan, Miss Lawrence, Adriane Lenox, Natasha Lyonne, Rob Morgan, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Evan Ross, Tyler James Williams, Tone Bell, Blake DeLong, Dana Gourrier, Melvin Gregg, Erik LaRay Harvey, Ray Shell, Dusan Dukic, Koumba Ball, Kate MacLellan, Kwasi Songui, Letitia Brookes, Warren 'Slim' Williams, Orville Thompson, Jeff Corbett, Damian Joseph Quinn, Robert Alan Beuth, Randy Davison, Kevin Hanchard, Jono Townsend, Morgan Moore, Arlen John Bonnar, Furly Mac, Andrew Zadel, Tristan D. Lalla, Alex Bisping, Don Anderson, Amanda Strawn, Charleine Charles, Sylvia Stewart, Daphné Archer, Anita Lee, Tony Chao, Linda Sauvé, Alain Goulem, Ramona Clyke, Laurent Beaudin, Alika Autran, Kim Feeney, Diana Carmen Ratycz, Richard Jutras, Jonathan Higgins, Marc Essertaize, Nealla Gordon, Len Blavatnik, Christopher Ricardo Price, Taryn Brown, Zuri Hawkins, Elizabeth Eveillard, Clauter Alexandre, Penande Estime, Elikya Tupula, Nefertari Zanyah Brewster-Griffith, Joe Cobden, Ronda Louis-Jeune, Maxime Paradis, Sarah Levesque, Donald Fullilove
- Director: Lee Daniels
Comments
- eric262003 - 28 November 2022
Mundane, Predictable And Something You'll Likely Forget About After You Watched It
In the last 36 years that he has been directing movies, Lee Daniels has been struggling with one very important detail that solidifies as one of the best directors out there. You know what it is? His failure to capture an audience. Surely for a black, sexually fluid director whose primary focus has always been about African-Americans and their struggles to survive in the world that they live in, but his overall qualities of films have been drier than a rice cake. Not necessarily terrible films, but nothing to capture our attention, therefore most of his films have been convoluted, mundane and easily forgettable.
For example in "The United States vs. Billie Holiday", the film focus' very little on the iconic singer's struggles with the law enforcement and her battles with substance abuse and only featuring the reel of the events. It goes through her triumpshs and defeats as she's constantly battling with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics that it's hard to get invested into the events in her life if there is nothing to get emotional about. Daniels just seems focused on adopting a bona fide hodgepodge of story angles that does nothing more then to overwhelm its audience.
Seemingly set in the year 1957, we find singer/songwriter Billie Holiday (Andra Day) narrating her situation with the charismatic Reginald Love Devine (Leslie Jordan). By making these scenes part of the story instead of using this device as a voice over narrations, just adds to the confusion of the story. Going in and out of scenes way too thinly and making it a constitutional part of the story we never get to see much or hear Day's portrayal of the story. Sure the events come to life here, but with the framing behind it, we can never get invested in the emotional turmoil that has plagued this troubled entertainer. And this is nothing in compare to the lack of artistic merit this film contains.
Holiday's career and her encounters with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics are narrated by use of archieve footage. But the real story seems to be upstaged by the swinging jazz scores and extravagant performances. While Holiday wastes away on her heroin addiction, she looks back at her childhood past and yet it's seen as an innocent reflection without any signs of what influenced her to become fixated on it. They usually tend to pop up in many biopics here, but Daniels never focuses too much and in the end we are still left wondering why.
The performers as a whole still managed to provide regarding the material that was given to them. Trevante Rhodes was incredibly charming as the two-faced Jimmy Fletcher. He was a black federal agent who was assigned to investigate Holiday in 1947 and delivers his lines with just the right amount of charm and sophistication. Which leads to romantic affair with Holiday that lacks in chemistry. Not to entirely blame day as the reason why the relationship was very lukewarm in delivery. Andra Day delivers the emotional pain that seems to be magnetic in her life. It also seems that the song "Strange Fruit" which means so dearly to her lingers in her mind throughout the narrative. When she performed it was executed as a direct message across that she's willing to bravely sing it even if it might not sit well with others who have boldly tried to pervent her from singing because they believe it begin a Civil Rights Movement.
If there were any reason to lay blame as to why this movie was an uneventful experience it's Daniels. By skimming through events and not giving the audience to get into them, all he does is just confuse his fanbase. When Fletcher arrests Holiday we only see it at the moment. We never know why he would betray her becvause there was no buildup that led to such a tragedy. The film explores and looks into the forbidden fruit of songs namely "Strange Fruit" but never gives us any feelings Holiday has about this song except that she wants to sing it to the public. We could never feel for her when her health was on the decline in 1959. All we see is her physical decline but know initial story that led to her decline which would lead to her death. Day's performance seems more to depend on mimicry as opposed to really show any kind of feeling within her. Holiday's life was saturated with heartbreak, pain and emotional turmoil and yet Day seems to only concentrate on the key points in lfe. But we never look into what made her extraordinary character in the entertainment industry.
Daniels seemed to had the potential in making a provocative story and there was some good material right in front of his eyes. Unfortunately, he failed to turn straw into gold here because there isn't any redeemably appealing traits here that makes me want to see it again. In the end this movie was very high in style, but very lacking in substance. Even though Andra Day gives it her all in her performance, even she couldn't really save this sad and poorly executed film.
