I Wanna Dance with Somebody review – another dully generic biopic from the writer of Bohemian Rhapsody

Though it’s no mystery as to why studios are great fans of him – Bohemian Rhapsody, for example, made MCU money out of a biopic – there aren’t many more uninspiring marketing phrases than “written by Anthony McCarten.” A veteran of awards-friendly true-story films, his scripts have, to this point, mostly been perfunctory and shallow and almost always over-extended. So it proves again with Whitney Houston biopic I Wanna Dance with Somebody, a two-and-a-half-hour montage that has little insight or emotional resonance, hamstrung by its obligations to appeal to Houston’s estate, leaving its drama with little bite.

Following Whitney (played here by Naomi Ackie in by far her biggest role to date) from the gig that got her signed with influential music executive Clive Davis (Stanley Tucci) to her tragic death at the age of just 48, McCarten’s script is generic and dull. None of the characters are afforded any real depth, and the choice to treat Whitney’s addiction problems and closeted sexuality with kid gloves, though keeping the film in unimpeachable “good taste,” denies her the spiky edges of a real person.

Though the near-150 minute runtime feels too long, no single issue seems to get enough time, the film too concerned with hitting the next obligatory biographical beat. It means Whitney’s family come across as mere ciphers, while her marriage to Bobby Brown (Ashton Sanders, miscast) is similarly thin. Ackie herself does a solid job in the lead role, but it’s not the sort of star-making, film-elevating performance that I Wanna Dance with Somebody needed to really make an impact.

Hitting all the expected music biopic beats across an indulgent runtime is not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself – that’s exactly what Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis did earlier this year and it worked like a charm. But that film had an explosive lead performance from Austin Butler and style to spare, whereas Kasi Lemmons’s direction here is uncharacteristically drab, making none of the interesting choices that could have drawn something more impactful out of the bland writing. Even the concert scenes mostly look cobbled together with some not-great editing and VFX work – you never believe that the giant audiences and Ackie’s Whitney are in the same space like you did in Elvis.

The one great scene that the film manages to conjure isn’t even from its own work. In recreating Whitney’s iconic and magnificent performance of the national anthem at the 1991 Superbowl, the sheer power of the singing is undeniably moving, but that’s thanks purely to Whitney’s own gifts. As with all the musical performances in the movie, it’s exclusively Whitney’s voice we’re hearing and, in this one case, it’s enough to overcome the uninspiring film around it and really hit home.

It’s not enough to elevate I Wanna Dance with Somebody past mediocrity, though, just one of a million samey music biopics that drags on for an interminably long time. As a calling card performance for Naomi Ackie, it’s not a bad role, but an artist as groundbreaking and influential as Whitney Houston deserves a far more energetic and original tribute than this.

I Wanna Dance with Somebody is released in UK cinemas on 30 December.