Whitney

Name: Whitney
Genre: Biography, Music, Documentary
Released: July 6, 2018
Duration: 120 min
Rating: 75
Cast: Alan Jacobs, Antonio Reid, Aretha Franklin, Bobbi Kristina Brown, Bobby Brown

2018

METASCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 37 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 28 Ratings

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7.6

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7.6	Your Score
7.6	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 28 Ratings

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Movie Details & Credits

Roadside Attractions | Release Date: July 6, 2018 | Not Rated

Starring: Alan Jacobs, Antonio Reid, Aretha Franklin, Bobbi Kristina Brown, Bobby Brown, Cissy Houston, Clive Davis, Dee Dee Warwick, Dionne Warwick, Gary Catona, Gary Houston, Kenneth 'Babyface' Edmonds, Kevin Costner, Lynne Volkman, Marvin Gaye, Mary Jones, Merv Griffin, Nelson Mandela, Robyn Crawford, Steven Gittelman, Whitney Houston

Summary: Whitney Houston broke more music industry records than any other female singer in history. With over 200 million album sales worldwide, she was the only artist to chart seven consecutive U.S. No. 1 singles. She also starred in several blockbuster movies before her brilliant career gave way to erratic behavior, scandals and death at age 48.Whitney Houston broke more music industry records than any other female singer in history. With over 200 million album sales worldwide, she was the only artist to chart seven consecutive U.S. No. 1 singles. She also starred in several blockbuster movies before her brilliant career gave way to erratic behavior, scandals and death at age 48. The documentary feature Whitney is an intimate, unflinching portrait of Houston and her family that probes beyond familiar tabloid headlines and sheds new light on the spellbinding trajectory of Houston’s life. … Expand

Director: Kevin Macdonald

Genre(s): Biography, Music, Documentary

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 120 min

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Critic Reviews

100

Mick LaSalle

Jul 6, 2018

If you liked Whitney Houston before, you’ll like her even more after seeing this. You’ll also admire her and feel pity for her and feel frustrated by her. Read full review

Gary Thompson

Jul 5, 2018

Whitney offers an informed and moving portrait of a complex, talented woman who was poorly understood, and often cruelly judged. Read full review

The Playlist Jordan Ruimy

May 27, 2018

Stripping the “I Will Always Love You,” singer away from sensationalist tabloid dirt that marred her life, MacDonald’s thoughtfulness is arguably its standout element. The finesse with which he crafts his doc makes for, quite simply, an absorbing and moving portrayal of an unforgettable heartrending figure. Read full review

RogerEbert.com Susan Wloszczyna

Jul 6, 2018

A well-done but all-too-woeful wallow of a documentary. Read full review

Dominick Suzanne-Mayer

Jul 24, 2018

By the time Whitney reaches the point it inevitably must, Macdonald’s film stands as an archive of how preventable Houston’s passing truly was. Read full review

Peter Travers

Jul 5, 2018

Though Macdonald offers the sight and sound of Whitney in interviews and home movies, she is never heard grappling with the grave issues the film raises. Read full review

The Guardian Peter Bradshaw

Jul 5, 2018

There are watchable moments, undoubtedly, and it is extraordinary to watch Houston’s sensational performance at the 1991 Super Bowl, singing The Star Spangled Banner with such passion: perhaps the greatest moment of her professional life. Her enigma remains unsolved. Read full review

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User Reviews

cocolino18Simon

Aug 1, 2018

Who will respect the opinion of some troll( 15-16-years old for sure) who call himself duddy5698? Hey, duddy go and hide yourself somewhere!Every normal person( i repeat normal) will like and support Whitney because at her prime she had one of the greatest female voices of all time!

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

cocolino18

Aug 1, 2018

Great movie which shows her life, she was like all of us,nobody is perfect and anyone has his own issues! And the user duddy5698 is just a 14-15-years old not very intelligent ignorant and racist who knows absolutely nothing about music and who don't understand the fact that he is notGreat movie which shows her life, she was like all of us,nobody is perfect and anyone has his own issues! And the user duddy5698 is just a 14-15-years old not very intelligent ignorant and racist who knows absolutely nothing about music and who don't understand the fact that he is not perfect too!And the ones who said that she screamed is tone deaf!!!… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

LamontRaymond

Jul 7, 2018

A fantastic film. A documentary right up there with the very best in recent years, including Amy, the Amy Winehouse doc. Whitney's talent was immense, and her story is incredible. The filmmaker had incredible access to family and friends who knew the straight story. And wow, are there someA fantastic film. A documentary right up there with the very best in recent years, including Amy, the Amy Winehouse doc. Whitney's talent was immense, and her story is incredible. The filmmaker had incredible access to family and friends who knew the straight story. And wow, are there some revelations in this film. This is absolutely one of the best films of the year.… Expand

3 of 4 users found this helpful31

Bertaut1

Aug 12, 2018

More emotional than I expected

I wasn't a huge fan of Nick Broomfield and Rudi Dolezal's Whitney: Can I Be Me (2017). The film was built on the foundation of never-before-seen backstage footage from Houston's World Tour 1999, but I felt the narrative was poorly constructed, jumping from herMore emotional than I expected

I wasn't a huge fan of Nick Broomfield and Rudi Dolezal's Whitney: Can I Be Me (2017). The film was built on the foundation of never-before-seen backstage footage from Houston's World Tour 1999, but I felt the narrative was poorly constructed, jumping from her divorce from Bobby Brown in 2007 to her death in 2012 with very little detail on what happened in those five years. This had the effect of making the last part of the documentary feel rushed and incomplete. I went into it not knowing a huge amount about Whitney Houston, and I came out still not knowing a huge amount about her.

Written and directed by Kevin Macdonald, Whitney covers almost identical terrain as Broomfield and Dolezal, with many of the same interviewees appearing in both films, and much of the same factual information presenting itself (Houston tried drugs long before becoming a celebrity; she was criticised as "acting white" and selling out her culture by many black people, and was booed at the 1989 Soul Train Music Awards; she was hounded with questions regarding her sexuality for much of her life, etc). One hugely important absence from both films, of course, is Robyn Crawford, Whitney's one time best friend, road manager, and probable lover, who was pretty much the only person in Houston's life who seemed to tell her what was what and have her best interests at heart. Apart from a beautiful obituary for Esquire (on whose editorial staff Crawford's wife works), Crawford has maintained a dignified silence since Houston died, and neither Broomfield and Dolezal nor Macdonald were able to persuade her to speak on camera. This leaves a sizeable lacuna in the narratives of both films, as it is fairly unlikely anyone will really get to the core of who Houston was until (or indeed if) Crawford decides to tell her own story.

For all their similarities, however, I found Macdonald's film superior to Can I Be Me. Whitney has two major, and interconnected, advantages over the earlier film. Can I Be Me is more concerned with facts, and probably covers more "Did you know" moments, such as the idea to open "I Will Always Love You" capella style was actually Kevin Costner's. However, having said that, Macdonald does manage to squeeze in a couple of not especially well known moments of his own; for example, Houston's haunting rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" at the 1991 Super Bowl was completely unrehearsed, and the revelations regarding Dee Dee Warwick are shocking to say the least. However, what Macdonald does much better than Broomfield and Dolezal is that, on several occasions, he takes time out from the narrative to simply let the audience hear her sing. Probably because of this, his film is considerably more emotive. I was very moved by it on a couple of occasions; I don't remember being moved by Can I Be Me at all. One scene in particular I found very upsetting recalls that horrific scene in Asif Kapadia's Amy, where Amy Winehouse is performing in Serbia a month before she died. In Whitney, it's footage from her Nothing But Love World Tour 2010, as she tries and completely fails to sing "I Will Always Love You" in Newcastle. The crowd is respectful enough, but given that so much of the documentary is simply about her voice, seeing her like this is very sad, as with her hoarse voice, she can barely stay in tune, let alone hit the high notes, sounding more like someone doing a bad karaoke rendition than one of the greatest singers of all time.

Another very well handled part of the documentary's narrative is its coverage of what could be termed "mainstream media complicity" in her suffering. Look, Whitney Houston was a drug addict and a terrible mother, who was indirectly responsible for Bobbi Kristina Brown's death, insofar as she gave her child no stability, and introduced her to a world of substance abuse. Nobody is arguing anything different. But she was also a person, suffering deeply, in public, and very few people did, or even tried to do, anything to help her. The film presents a 2002 sketch from Saturday Night Live with Maya Rudolph as Whitney, in which she addresses the infamous Diane Sawyer "crack is whack" interview, and a scene from a 2005 episode of American Dad!, in which an emaciated Whitney "sings for crack" in the Smith living-room. These clips were probably funny at the time, but aren't especially funny now, and they serve to highlight one of the most bizarre paradoxes of our celebrity-obsessed society; we love to build people up and up and up, but, at some arbitrary point in time, we decide they've become too popular, too successful, too talented, so we do anything to pull them down, and when something goes wrong in their lives, really catastrophically wrong, our response as a society is not empathy, kindness, or understanding, but scorn, derision, and sarcasm. What a strange world we've made.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

LegendaryLass

Dec 14, 2018

MacDonald offers no real insight into the decline and death of Ms. Houston, but the access to friends and family for her early years provides quite a lot of fascinating stories.

0 of 1 users found this helpful01

JLuis_001

Sep 16, 2018

This documentary about Whitney Houston is pretty well crafted and although I could never consider or call myself a fan, it's definitely an excellent opportunity to learn more about her.

The style of the documentary is pretty basic, interspersing interviews with archive material. It may feelThis documentary about Whitney Houston is pretty well crafted and although I could never consider or call myself a fan, it's definitely an excellent opportunity to learn more about her.

The style of the documentary is pretty basic, interspersing interviews with archive material. It may feel passive but it never ceases to be interesting, especially when it reaches the point where it has to deal with the subject that eventually lead to the decay of her career and eventually the end of her life.

Whitney is a documentary that never ends up going too deep but I repeat, it's an excellent opportunity to learn more about her. And if you're a fan, needless to say the rest.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

duddy5698

Jul 23, 2018

Whitney doesn't celebrate her music. It shows how messed up she really was and makes you not like her and support her.

0 of 3 users found this helpful03

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