Ryan McNeil
Whitney Houston sits alone at a hotel bar. She’s behind dark glasses, rather dishevelled, looks like she’s been up for two days. She stares off into the middle distance and plays with her drink, the way someone would if they were alone and their phone battery had died. As she does, she squeaks and mumbles “I’m Saving All My Love for You” to herself. It’s a moment where one of the greatest voices in history is barely more than a mumble. It’s a glimpse of one of the most striking women ever to grace a pop stage looking like she just lost her house note at The MGM Grande. It is – without hyperbole – heartbreaking.
It’s WHITNEY.
This is the documentary about the life and career of Whitney Houston, as told by the people who were closest to her.
Beginning with her childhood upbringing in 1960’s/1970’s New Jersey, WHITNEY introduces us to a family with music coursing through their veins. Whitney’s mother – Sissy Houston – was a gospel singer; her cousins Dee-Dee and Dionne Warwick, pop singers successful in their own right.
When Whitney was a teenager, her mother saw a talent in her that showed great promise, and Sissy honed that talent until it was razor-sharp. Then – as now – stage parents everywhere would rush children with even a sliver of promise into the spotlight in the hopes of becoming the next big thing. Not The Houstons. Whitney was held back – well after she could have made an easy go of singing professionally. Instead she was moulded and groomed. Her parents – and her mother especially – knew that she might only get one shot, and that shot wouldn’t be taken until she was at her very best.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Signed to Arista records in 1983 at age 20, she made her national television debut that same year. In early 1985, her debut self-titled album would arrive and become the first solo female album to land three number one singles. And that was just the beginning. Her fame continued to rise through the eighties and early nineties, culminating with an epic Super Bowl performance of The Star Spangled Banner, and the double-barrel success of acting in THE BODYGUARD, and the songs its soundtrack would unleash on the world.
It was at this point in her life Whitney Houston married R&B star Bobby Brown, and gave birth to her daughter Bobbi Kristina. Not terribly long after, she struggled with sobriety and substance abuse…leading to a drawn-out and disastrous spiral towards her untimely death-by-overdose in 2012 at age 48.
As the film begins to detail Whitney’s long slide to her untimely death, it asks us all to look at ourselves for a moment. It reminds us of every bad impression we laughed at, every judgemental comment we made, every presumption we muttered and gossiped to our friends. We wanted to believe in these moments that we were better or more superior to a super-rich celebrity. We believed that the smouldering trainwreck her life had become was something for our amusement – our consumption.
As we think back on our attitude towards Whitney Houston in those final ten or twelve years of her life, we are forced to confront the fact that we were passing judgement over someone forced to live a lie. We were laughing and whispering about someone trying to outrun some wickedly dark demons. Some shockingly, wickedly dark demons.
In an ironic twist, if any of us were confronted with the sorts of shitty hands Whitney Houston was dealt over the course of her life, we’d turn to artists like her to give us comfort. But when our idols need to confront their own shortcomings, we – their audience – are only too quick to turn our backs.
Whitney’s life was one of denial, and one where she had to fight for her seat at the artistic table. She became commercially and critically successful, but all the success and talent in the world is no substitute for purpose and place. If you can’t understand where you fit in with your own community, or if you have to deny your very being, no amount of applause will fulfill you…a lesson Whitney Houston had to learn the hard way.
If there’s a flaw to WHITNEY it’s that it fails to let us take in the view from the peak of the mountaintop. At the peak of Whitney Houston’s success, she was starring a hit film, won an armful of Grammy awards, had the number one song in America for fourteen weeks running, and was pretty much the biggest star in music. Documentaries can only tell so much story in so much time, but this feels like a detail that gets short-sold. This is a level of fame few pop stars ever achieve in their lives – a moment where just about every eye in the zeitgeist is on them.
Without giving this moment in her career its due, WHITNEY leads one to believe that just as her journey reached its peak, Whitney Houston began her descent. The truth is that she stayed on that peak for a good little while before starting to stumble downward, and the audience should bask in that success with her.
What WHITNEY does best is remind us of Whitney at her best. When she was on her game, watching Whitney Houston sing was like watching Serena Williams serve aces…or watching Step Curry hit three-pointers. It was witnessing a singular talent make something so challenging look like it was so. damned. easy. At times, she barely seemed to be opening her mouth at all, and yet the notes that would come forth were as clear and powerful as any reality show contestant singing at full-voice. Her vocals could knock you clean off your feet, and make you weep on your way to the ground. She was part prize-fighter; part virtuoso…and that level of talent only comes when natural ability is fostered by love and guidance of those nearest and dearest.
It’s a true pity, then, that those nearest and dearest would prove to be the ultimate undoing of Whitney’s talent…and her story.