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‘Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ Review: Her Lonely Heart Calls

This film from Kasi Lemmons is a jukebox retelling of Whitney Houston’s parabola from sweatshirts to sequins.

In a scene from the film, a woman in a gold and black coat sings onstage.

By Amy Nicholson

No one could sing like Whitney Houston, and Kasi Lemmons, the director of the biopic “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” only rarely asks her lead, Naomi Ackie, to try. This is a jukebox retelling of Houston’s parabola from sweatshirts to sequins, from church choir girl to tabloid fixture, from her teenage romance with Robyn Crawford (Nafessa Williams), the woman who would continue on as her creative director, to her volatile marriage to Bobby Brown (Ashton Sanders), who slithers into the movie licking his lips like he’s hungry to eat her alive.

Those beats are here. But it’s the melodies that matter, those moments when Ackie opens her mouth to channel Houston’s previously recorded songs. We’ve heard Houston’s rendition of “I Will Always Love You” countless times, and Lemmons bets, correctly, that the beloved hit will still seize us by the heart during the rather forthright montage she pairs with it, images of Houston marrying Brown, birthing her daughter Bobbi Kristina and honoring Nelson Mandela underneath a sky filled with fireworks.

Ackie doesn’t much resemble the superstar, although her carriage is correct: eyes closed, head flung back, arms pushing away the air as if to make room for that mezzo-soprano. That the film sticks to Houston’s surfaces is half excusable. The screenwriter Anthony McCarten seems to find that the woman underneath the pop star shell was still struggling to define herself at the time of her death at the age of 48. We see her raised to be the mini-me of her mother, the singer Cissy Houston (Tamara Tunie), complete with matching haircut, and then handed over to a recording label to be transformed into America’s Princess, a crown she wore with hesitance, and, later, resentment. (Stanley Tucci plays her friendly, Fagin-with-a-combover Clive Davis of Arista Records, who also produced this film.) At Houston’s final “Oprah” performance, recreated here, she belts an earnest ballad called, “I Didn’t Know My Own Strength.”

Houston didn’t write her own material; she just sang like she did, courtesy of Cissy’s fastidious coaching. “God gives you a gift, you got to use it right,” Cissy lectures. Yet, Houston as seen here can only say yes or no to other people’s ideas of what she should sing, wear and do. (A camera pan suggests, unconvincingly, that Houston thought of the film’s title track as a love song to Crawford.) Increasingly, she chooses opposition. Her successes are shared — and her money swallowed up by her father (Clarke Peters), who was also her manager — but her mistakes are all hers. (Even though Lemmons takes care to include a scene in which Houston absolves Brown of her crack addiction.)

Houston’s defiance is the movie’s attempt to answer the great mystery of her career: why she deliberately damaged her voice through smoking and hard drugs. “It’s like leaving a Stradivarius in the rain!” Davis yelps. The trouble with a gift, the film decides, is it went undervalued by Houston herself, who assumes she’ll be able to hit bombastic high notes every night of her poorly reviewed final world tour. In this doomed stretch, the camera creeps so close to Ackie that you can count the beads of sweat on her nose. The smothering is heavy-handed, yet apropos for an artist who never had the space, or creative motivation, to fully express herself.

Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody Rated PG-13 for drugs, cigarettes and swearing. Running time: 2 hours 26 minutes. In theaters.

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About 25 minutes into "Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody," an inarticulate, slapdash musical biopic about the famed songstress, the film reaches its high point: Arista Records head Clive Davis ( Stanley Tucci ) enters the nightclub where Houston ( Naomi Ackie ) and her gospel legend mother Cissy Houston ( Tamara Tunie ) are performing. When the latter sees the A&R man taking his seat, she fakes losing her voice, clearing the way for her daughter to sing "The Greatest Love of All." Her vocals climb, soaring to the familiar majestic heights that catapulted her toward stardom. We watch Davis watch her. In one close-up, you can almost imagine dollar signs dancing around his head. The scene is so stirring one woman in my screening pulled out a lighter and waved her flame to the rhythm of Houston's unforgettable vibrato.

During that brief scene, you can imagine "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" gravitating toward a clear-eyed narrative about the annihilation of a voice, talent, and person by flattening her identity for the commodification of an image. But in working with an unfocused script by Anthony McCarten (" Bohemian Rhapsody "), director Kasi Lemmons flounders when rendering the woman beyond the tabloid cliff notes of her life.

"I Wanna Dance with Somebody" takes great pains to craft an intuitive throughline for Houston's life, as we briefly open in 1994 at the American Music Awards before flashing back to 1983 in New Jersey. But how Lemmons ultimately maneuvers back to the AMAs makes little emotional or logical sense.

Still, for a short time, we're ready to absorb the saga with Lemmons. We see Houston (her friends call her "Nippy") meeting and forming a lesbian relationship with Robyn Crawford ( Nafessa Williams )—Lemmons should be complimented for not avoiding this portion of the singer's personal life. Houston eventually signs with the steadfast Clive Davis, takes advice from her parents Cissy and the selfish patriarch John Houston ( Clarke Peters ) to tone down her butch image in lieu of becoming America's princess. Soon enough, she begins racking up hits. Unfortunately, these scenes rush by, to the point that their brusque speed fools you into believing that Lemmons is merely trying to get to the real story she wants to tell.

But that story never arrives. Instead, the film hops and skips through the highlights of Houston's career: making the music video for "How Will I Know," choosing the demo tape of the titular "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" from Davis' pile of cassettes, and performing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Super Bowl XXV. All the while, hampered by her drug addiction, her relationship with Crawford frays. Instead, she chooses her image, career, and desire for Bobby Brown (played by Ashton Sanders , who gives the R&B singer a bundle of tics and a vocal cadence alarmingly close to DMX).

The editing choices by Daysha Broadway ("Insecure") are driven by a bare necessity to advance the narrative but not any emotional momentum. Some of her dissonant decisions are unintentionally comedic in an "It's so bad, it's entertaining" way, like when Houston’s father threatens his daughter with litigation from his hospital bed—the next cut is to his funeral.

And the way that Lemmons stages certain scenes doesn't cohere with how humans communicate. One sequence, occurring in the singer’s dressing room, sees Crawford, Houston, and Brown discussing business. Rather than cutting between each person, Lemmons stages the trio in a three-shot in which they don’t face each other but stare awkwardly into a dressing room mirror, giving the appearance of them stiffly speaking to their reflections.

We never get a sense from this film of Houston as a person; Ackie might as well be a hologram performing these songs. Her marriage to Brown lacks a visible arc; the role that Crawford played in Houston's life after Brown entered is never discussed (though Williams pulls some laughs through her energetic verve); and Cissy and John serve little purpose (Peters makes some very odd, grating choices). But you can't blame any of the actors for coming up short. The script, the editing, the cinematography, and every component of what makes a movie—aside from the impeccable costuming—undermines the performances here.

The jukebox element of a musical biopic will always prove a hit. The film, however, must be as transcendent as the songbook. None of the performances, unfortunately, are filmed well by cinematographer Barry Ackroyd (" The Hurt Locker "). The lighting proves inconsistent, and his shaky cam style plays incongruously with the musical staging. Only the tunes themselves make these scenes remotely watchable. It's a sad development, and for a director of Lemmons' caliber, it is particularly shocking.

It's never clear what destination this film is heading toward, or what climax we're climbing up to. The score by Chanda Dancy turns unbearably soapy and melodramatic as we fast-forward to Houston's 2009 performance on Oprah, and then her life in Los Angeles in 2012. These events are boxes on a checklist. They would bloat the movie if a scene ever played long enough to fulfill the definition of a scene.

What did Black superstardom mean during the 1980s? What does the erasure of Houston's queer relationship and its modern acceptance say about the strides we've made in Black queer representation? Who was Houston as a mother, as a businesswoman, and as the leader of her career? The script asks these questions but never takes any considerable interest in their answers.

Much like with " Respect ," last year's Aretha Franklin biopic, the events here all feel meaningless when trying to hit every point of Houston's life. We do arrive back at the AMAs performance, a high-wire vocal act that thrills yet doesn't provide an exclamation point to the biopic. The credits then feature clips of the real-life Houston performing, once again undermining Ackie's turn as the singer. The indelible, unmatched voice of Houston may live on, but "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" lacks the ingredients of what made Houston a force that permanently altered every person who truly heard her.

Now playing in theaters.

Robert Daniels

Robert Daniels is an Associate Editor at RogerEbert.com. Based in Chicago, he is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association (CFCA) and Critics Choice Association (CCA) and regularly contributes to the New York Times , IndieWire , and Screen Daily . He has covered film festivals ranging from Cannes to Sundance to Toronto. He has also written for the Criterion Collection, the Los Angeles Times , and Rolling Stone about Black American pop culture and issues of representation.

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Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody movie poster

Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022)

Rated PG-13

144 minutes

Naomi Ackie as Whitney Houston

Ashton Sanders as Bobby Brown

Stanley Tucci as Clive Davis

Nafessa Williams as Robyn Crawford

Lance A. Williams as Gerry Griffith

Tamara Tunie as Cissy Houston

Clarke Peters as John Houston

Daniel Washington as Gary Houston

JaQuan Malik Jones as Michael Houston

Kris Sidberry as Pat Houston

Tanner Beard as Günther

Bailee Lopes as Bobbi-Kristina (8-10 Yrs old)

Jennifer Ellis as Lisa Hintelmann

Kasi Lemmons
Anthony McCarten

Cinematographer

Barry Ackroyd
Daysha Broadway
Chanda Dancy

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Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody Reviews

It's miraculous that a movie penned by the screenwriter of Bohemian Rhapsody would be worth watching, but Kasi Lemmons continues to prove she is a highly versatile filmmaker/actor whose imprint on cinema will be felt for decades to come.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Mar 6, 2024

It wasn’t gay enough, but that it was gay at all gives me hope we’ll get this part of her story done right some day.

Full Review | Feb 13, 2024

I Wanna Dance with Somebody is a disservice to the memory of Whitney Houston. Make a playlist, watch videos, dance to her music. That’s a better way to remember her.

Full Review | Sep 6, 2023

“Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody” has broad, nostalgic appeal – because who doesn’t want to take a break and listen to Whitney’s greatest hits for two-plus hours with period-perfect re-creations of music videos and performances?

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 16, 2023

You get the sense that someone handed screenwriter Anthony McCarten (“Bohemian Rhapsody”) a studio note that simply read, “Play the hits.”

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 9, 2023

This one is far from being the best biopic I’ve seen, despite the cast's committed performances. Glad they opted to use Houston's real voice, as it would be impossible to imitate THAT.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 8, 2023

Whitney Houston fans won't want to miss this combo pack revealing glimpses of the person behind the star. A must-have for any true fan.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 2, 2023

WHITNEY HOUSTON: I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY is like the SparkNotes of [Houston's] life, a smattering of collected moments that feel hollow.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Feb 21, 2023

Like in a musical, I Wanna Dance with Somebody links triumphs and failures to songs, yet it doesn't amount to more than a superficial and decaffeinated story about the winner of 411 awards... [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Feb 9, 2023

I Want to Dance With Somebody exposes its protagonist's descent, but never really asks what led to this unexpected and abrupt end... [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 9, 2023

But, and in I Want to Dance With Somebody there is more than one 'but', everything or almost everything gets lost, it vanishes, blurs. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 9, 2023

Lemmons and screenwriter Anthony McCarten never get to the truth about Whitney, piecing together one scene after another after another... like writing a pop song with lyrics, melody and rhythm, but without a hook.

Full Review | Feb 8, 2023

... Covers the life and work of the late artist in autopilot, embracing each and every cliché of the genre. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Feb 8, 2023

The story is good but the musical numbers are amazing.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Feb 3, 2023

As good as Ackie was, the final moments of the film for anyone who has seen the 1994 American Music Awards love medley only highlights the distance between her and Whitney...

Full Review | Jan 30, 2023

Content with staying in expected territory... makes for a rousing yet routine addition to the music biopic canon.

Full Review | Jan 26, 2023

There’s never a false note in Naomi Ackie’s performance...it feels effortless, avoiding any sense of imitation, she fully inhabits the role...Ackie really sells it, as she lip syncs for her life, capturing Whitney’s on-stage presence, passion, and spirit.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jan 16, 2023

It’s just completely mediocre and not worth your time.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/10 | Jan 13, 2023

I Wanna Dance with Somebody breaks my cardinal rule of biopics that I have mentioned time and time again. It tells too big of a story without getting specific about anything.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 11, 2023

For anyone needing more, the documentary Whitney certainly provides a more interesting dive. As a biopic, this film is entirely satisfactory without ever tipping into being offensively bad.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Jan 11, 2023

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‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’ Comes to Praise Whitney Houston, Not to Bury Her

By David Fear

You don’t have to be fanatical about Whitney Houston to have a go-to Whitney moment — you just need to love the sound of a human voice soaring into the stratosphere. Early adopters would probably cite her 1983 appearance on The Merv Griffin Show, right after Clive Davis signed her to Arista (she sang “Home” from the play The Wiz ). Others go straight to the “How Will I Know?” music video , which helped break her on MTV and thus, the pop charts. Hardcore Houston-heads know that if you want the real best-in-show performance, you check out the medley she performed at the 1994 American Music Awards of “I Loves You Porgy,” “And I Am Telling You,” and “I Have Nothing,” a true-blue vocalist triathlon. And don’t get us started on her definitive rendition of the National Anthem at the 1991 Super Bowl ….

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Instead, the movie works determinedly, almost single-mindedly to bring the focus back to her talent. That was what made Arista Records founder Clive Davis ( Stanley Tucci , part stunt casting and part inspired choice) sit up straight when he heard the young Houston sing at a tiny night club in New York City, and sign her almost immediately afterward. The talent was what inspired her mother, Cissy (Tamara Tunie), also a renowned and touring singer, to sacrifice the spotlight so her daughter could properly shine. (It’s Cissy who fakes a cough when Davis shows up at the Sweetwater’s gig, and Cissy who starts conducting the Merv Griffin Show ’s orchestra when the tempo gets sluggish during Whitney’s appearance. Per the film, at least.) The talent is how Houston went from simply making records to breaking records.

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Which is usually when the film bumps up against the curse that afflicts most music biopics: trying to depict a complicated life in a little over two hours. Screenwriter Anthony McCarten, who cowrote Bohemian Rhapsody , doesn’t try to push Houston’s romantic relationship with Crawford into the background or pretend it didn’t exist. There’s no gray area as to their love for each other, with Houston even telling Davis that the title song is about “when you wanna dance with somebody…but you just can’t. ” Message received. But even Crawford, hired as a “creative assistant,” is eventually relegated to just another person there to say “No” or “Be careful” or “You’ve changed” or “You need to change” before exiting stage left.

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<i>Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody</i> Captures Both the Tragedy and Glory of the Superstar

Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody Captures Both the Tragedy and Glory of the Superstar

A s adored as she was in her lifetime, the real meaning of Whitney Houston didn’t click until she was gone. When she was alive, we knew about her extraordinary vocal range, and how electrifying a performer she was. We also knew she had substance-abuse problems, was struggling through a stormy marriage (to fellow pop star Bobby Brown), and, as the tabloids told us in trumpeting type, was gay or bisexual. For some reason, it was easy to be blasé about all of those things—weren’t the personal lives of all pop superstars a mess? Wasn’t that just the cost of being them? Weren’t they, on some level, just asking for trouble? Houston seemed to be playing off a rulebook that had been written long before she hit the scene. Her death in 201 2, after a drug-related drowning accident, was mournful but not particularly surprising.

Yet the more time passes, the sadder it seems that most of us didn’t pay closer attention to the person Houston really was, or was trying to be. The fractured framework of Houston’s life has been addressed in several documentaries (among them Kevin Macdonald’s Whitney and Nick Broomfield and Rudi Dolezal’s Whitney: Can I Be Me ) and several biopics or thinly veiled fictionalizations (including, most recently, Andrew Dosumnu’s earnest but inert Beauty ). But of the non-docs, at least, Kasi Lemmons ’ Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody— starring English actress Naomi Ackie—may come closest to capturing Houston’s exuberant contradictions, and the joy she both took and gave in performing. The movie isn’t a melodramatic tell-all, or a total downer. But it manages, even while being unapologetically entertaining, to feel like an honest reckoning with all the things we didn’t want to know about Houston at her fame’s height. It’s a film that takes our failings into consideration, rather than simply fixating on hers, a summation of all the things she tried to tell us and couldn’t.

The story begins in 1983 New Jersey, with Ackie as the teenage Whitney, the star of her church gospel choir. Her vocals are disciplined—her discerning mama, Cissy (Tamara Tunie), a gospel singer extraordinaire herself, stands listening nearby, a stern criticism already taking shape in her eyes. Even so, Whitney’s voice is fresh and full of light, like a heartfelt promise. A little later, we see her listening to a song through headphones in a park. A girl comes up to say hello—it’s an innocent pickup, the way people used to get things going in the days before dating apps. The girl, Robyn Crawford (Nafessa Williams), laughs when Whitney introduces herself decorously as Whitney Elizabeth Houston. But before long, she has fallen in love with both the voice and the woman. The two move in together, even as Cissy scowls disapprovingly.

Cissy also feels competitive with her daughter, though there’s generosity, too: at a local nightclub, where Whitney usually sings backup for her mother the almost-star, Cissy almost literally pushes her daughter into the spotlight when she sees major record exec Clive Davis (played, with affectionate perfection, by Stanley Tucci ) in the audience. Suddenly, there’s a record contract: Whitney’s father, the immediately untrustworthy John (Clarke Peters), gets in on the action, setting the stage for future looting of his daughter’s earnings. Young Whitney makes her TV debut on the Merv Griffin show—her singing is less a full-on display of what she can do and more of an embrace, as if she yearned to take the whole world in at once. And before you know it, she’s a superstar, commanding a stadium full of people in a Spandex catsuit and fantastic gold-embroidered toreador jacket. We’ve already seen that she’s at least two people in one: a forthright young woman who knows what she wants, and a woman who gives too much away, to the people around her and maybe even to her audience.

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All of this is standard biopic stuff. But along with screenwriter Anthony McCarten, Lemmons—who has made some terrific movies in her long career ( Eve’s Bayou , Talk to Me), if perhaps not as many movies as we might wish—weaves events together deftly, highlighting the significant ones and eliding stuff that doesn’t matter so much. She turns Whitney’s pursuit of Brown (played by Ashton Sanders) into a comedy bit. After being wowed by him at the Soul Train Awards, she realizes he’s sitting right in front of her and begins whacking his head with her minaudiere. He finally turns around, barely prepared for the dazzler who’s standing there, laughing at him. Robyn, at Whitney’s side, witnesses all of it. She and her former romantic partner have brokered a kind of platonic devotion, but they’re fooling neither themselves nor anyone else. Whitney’s life is like a pile of dynamite just waiting for a match.

Ackie’s performance is wonderful: as Whitney, there’s something girlishly vulnerable about her, but you can see this is also a woman who has had to put up rigid guardrails. She bristles with fury when she fields the criticism that part of her audience has deemed her “not Black enough.” In one of the movie’s most intense scenes, she rushes to the side of her hospitalized father where, even as he’s gasping for breath, he hisses through his teeth that she had better pay back the money he believes she owes him . (It’s $100 million, even though he’s already bled her dry.) The movie’s finest scenes—there are quite a few of them—are the ones set in Davis’s office, where he pops in one demo cassette after another. The two listen together, but he says nothing before she does. Instead, he scans her face, wanting to know only what she thinks. She hears one song—it happens to be “How Will I Know?” —and brightens immediately; he gently counters that he’s not sure it has a hook. “I’ll give it a hook!” she says, and history proves that she did.

Is that an idealized version of the relationship between a superstar producer and his superstar? Maybe. (Davis is one of the movie’s producers.) But music biopics need to be equal parts stardust and sawdust to work. Similarly, Lemmons addresses Houston’s drug use discreetly—the movie Whitney keeps her crack apparatus in a nice little case—and her lowest moments pass fleetingly, often indicated by excessively messy hair.

But then, we already know the worst parts of the story—how low do we really need to go? This also saves I Wanna Dance with Somebody from the typical third-act problem of most biopics: the endless depiction of the long, slow decline. Lemmons is more interested in the root of Houston’s tragedy than its expression, anyway. At one point, Whitney laments that it’s her job to “be everything to everyone.” The list of performers who have been broken by stardom is long, but Lemmons suggests that Whitney had more than her share of burdens. Her sexuality and how she chose to define it, or not, should have been the least of her problems, yet it was treated as everyone’s business. In the early 1990s, I once went to hear Gospel great Shirley Caesar. It was a remarkable show, inclusive in the purest sense, and rapturous enough to make even a lapsed Catholic want to come to Jesus. But somewhere near the end, Caesar injected the line “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” into her patter and the spell was broken. The radiant energy of the music, the vibe, had been an invocation to levitate—but not for everybody.

In I Wanna Dance with Somebody, during an episode of romantic turmoil between Whitney and Robyn—Whitney has just slept with Jermaine Jackson, and Robyn is livid—Whitney confesses that she wants a “real” family, with a husband and kids. The mores she grew up with have stuck hard. “We can go to hell for this kind of shit,” she tells Robyn, waving her arms at the apartment the two share, a place where a fluffy cat sleeps on their bed, where they have coffee together in the morning. The tragedy of Whitney Houston has so many tiers: it’s a classic story about show-biz exhaustion, about being bilked by people who should be working in your best interest, about turning to drugs when you need to unwind after a show or rev up before one. But most of all, it’s a tragedy about having too many people, and too many forces, clawing away at your soul. Whitney deserved better. Long may she levitate.

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‘Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ Review: A Lavish, All-Stops-Out Biopic That Channels Her Glory and Gets Her Story Right

Naomi Ackie captures Whitney Houston's incandescence in Kasi Lemmons' bracing biopic.

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I Wanna Dance With Somebody - Variety Critic's Pick

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She is more or less forced, by the music industry and by her manipulative business-manager father (played by the superb Clarke Peters), to hide her relationship with Robyn. She complies, though in a complex way, shunting Robyn to the side and sleeping with men, like Jermaine Jackson (Jaison Hunter), whom she’s attracted to, all of which feeds her without fulfilling her. She keeps Robyn hanging around, as her creative director and closest comrade, but Whitney also has a conflicted traditional side. She says she longs for a husband. Was Robyn Whitney Houston’s greatest love of all? The film answers that by dramatizing how the love that a homophobic society coerces Houston into repressing is at the heart of the traumas that come for her later. She denies who she is and keeps trying, and failing, to fill the void.

It doesn’t help that a segment of her audience turns on her for making pop music that’s “not Black enough.” Whitney herself, commiserating with Robyn, ruefully mocks the image she has to project in the “How Will I Know” video: flip, bouncy, and flirtatious, with a wig of taffy curls and the wholesome grin of what she derisively calls “America’s sweetheart.” That wasn’t her; her personality was grittier, wilder, tougher (she hated wearing dresses), and she felt alienated from the princess-next-door image she was selling.

The music, however, was another story. The movie shows us how Whitney meticulously chose among the songs Clive Davis found for her (he knew she couldn’t sell a song unless she believed in it), and how her taste was broader than traditional R&B because she’d grown up in a far more eclectic world. The songs reflected her spirit — and besides, it’s a form of elitism to believe that a pop song as luminous as “So Emotional” or “Didn’t We Almost Have It All” somehow lacks the “purity” of rock ‘n’ roll or R&B.

We see Whitney getting booed at the 1988 Soul Train Music Awards, and the film says it’s no coincidence that that’s the night she meets Bobby Brown, the sexy scurrilous lightweight she hitches herself to like a jalopy to hell. Ashton Sanders, who gave “Moonlight’s” greatest performance, plays Brown with just the right touch of slit-eyed saturnine opportunism. He and Whitney have a fatal attraction — she gives him respectability, he gives her street cred. And maybe she felt, too much, that she needed that. There’s a moment between them that’s so horrifying it’s funny: Bobby proposes to Whitney in the back of a car, and then, after he pops the bling on her finger, he drops some news he should have told her beforehand. This is who he is. So why did a star of Houston’s power and magnitude embrace this scroundrel as her romantic destiny?

The movie could have pushed the darkness a notch further, as Whitney spins down in a vicious cycle of splintered ego and self-destruction. “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” is frank enough about her cocaine addiction, but her dissolute final days are staged rather demurely. Yet through it all, we feel the terrible way that she’s pulled in all directions — a tricky thing for a biopic to dramatize, and this one does it thrillingly well. Kasi Lemmons’ staging has an unfussy intimacy, and she pulls off a coup by ending the film with one of Whitney’s greatest performances, though one that’s not nearly as famous as her “Star-Spangled Banner” at the 1991 Super Bowl. It’s her live performance of the medley of “I Loves You, Porgy,” “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” and the supremely devotional “I Have Nothing” from the 1994 American Music Awards, which builds and builds until her voice shines like a heavenly beacon. It lights the audience up.

Reviewed at Sony Screening Room, Nov. 30, 2022. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 146 MIN.

Production: A Sony Pictures Releasing release of a TriStar Pictures, Compelling Pictures, Black Label Media, Muse of Fire, Primary Wave Entertainment production. Producers: Anthony McCarten, Pat Houston, Clive Davis, Larry Mestel, Denis O’Sullivan, Jeff Kalligheri, Matt Jackson, Molly Smith, Trent Luckinbill, Thad Luckinbill, Matthew Salloway, Christina Papagjika. Executive producers: Naomi Ackie, Janice Beard, Lexie Beard, Tanner Beard, Jane Bergére, Marina Cappi, Dennis Casali, Josh Crook, Matthew Gallagher, Erika Hampson, Stella Meghie, Rachel Smith, Seth Spector.
Crew: Director: Kasi Lemmons. Screenplay: Anthony McCarten. Camera: Barry Ackroyd. Editor: Daysha Broadway. Music: Chanda Dancy, Whitney Houston.
With: Naomi Ackie, Stanley Tucci, Nafessa Williams, Tamara Tunie, Clarke Peters. Ashton Sanders, Bria Danielle Singleton.

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‘whitney houston: i wanna dance with somebody’ review: naomi ackie shines in kasi lemmons’ lovingly made biopic.

One of the all-time greatest female pop artists gets a bittersweet salute in this account of her triumphant three-decade career and the forces that dragged her down.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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Whitney houston: i wanna dance with somebody, common sense media reviewers.

Superstar's rise to fame has mature themes, drug use.

I Wanna Dance with Somebody: Movie Poster

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Champions the value of surrounding yourself with t

Characters are based on real, flawed people who ma

Though Houston's life ultimately ended in a tragic

Some of Houston and Brown's fights get physical: H

Kissing, sometimes followed by characters shown wa

Strong language includes a use of "f---ing," plus

Houston gets visibly wealthier over the course of

Houston had acknowledged substance dependencies th

Positive Messages

Champions the value of surrounding yourself with trusted loved ones, but undercuts this message by demonstrating how Houston's family exploited her. Makes clear how much drugs and alcohol affected Houston's life and career.

Positive Role Models

Characters are based on real, flawed people who make plenty of mistakes. Houston was very talented and worked hard, but she had many struggles, some caused or made worse by family members who worked for her, including her father, and some connected to her marriage with Bobby Brown. He's shown to be an unpredictable partner: sometimes loving, sometimes abusive.

Diverse Representations

Though Houston's life ultimately ended in a tragic and early death, she was a young Black woman who broke through to the highest stratosphere of the entertainment business, serving as a powerful symbol for women, especially Black women, all over the world. Many other Black actors appear, and the movie was directed by a Black woman, Kasi Lemmons. Includes Houston's relationship with her lifelong best friend, Robyn Crawford: The two women were a romantic couple until rumors spread about Houston's sexuality.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Some of Houston and Brown's fights get physical: He pins her against a wall and, in a way that seems very threatening, tells her never to "disrespect" him; she responds by saying she's going to get a gun and "smoke" his "ass" (she doesn't).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Kissing, sometimes followed by characters shown waking up in bed together. A tumultuous marriage is part of this narrative.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Strong language includes a use of "f---ing," plus "s--t," "damn," "hell," and "ass."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Houston gets visibly wealthier over the course of the movie, with private jets, fancy hotel rooms, and a spacious and luxuriously appointed house shown.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Houston had acknowledged substance dependencies that contributed to her untimely death. She's shown smoking cigarettes and marijuana and preparing to smoke crack: She gets a glass pipe out and lights a spoon, but viewers don't see her actually inhale. Many characters drink to excess, and the effect of both drink and drugs is evident in characters who are sloppy and incoherent. In a touching scene, Houston's attentive manager tells her that she should go to rehab, but Houston doesn't.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that I Wanna Dance with Somebody is a biopic about the life and career of Whitney Houston ( Naomi Ackie ), the talented singer who in the 1980s and 1990s had more hit singles than the Beatles. Most viewers will know going in that Houston died in 2012 at age 48. While her untimely death isn't depicted on-screen, viewers do see plenty of other iffy content as the film presents episodes from her life. Houston smokes cigarettes and marijuana and drinks wine and liquor. She's also shown rolling up a dollar bill in preparation for snorting cocaine and lighting a spoon and wielding a glass pipe in preparation for smoking crack. Drugs played a part in her death, as well as in her tumultuous relationship with singer Bobby Brown (Ashton Sanders). They fight frequently and use substances together; in one scene, Brown threatens Houston physically, and she says she's going to get a gun and shoot him dead. Sexual content includes passionate kissing (including between Houston her lifelong best friend, Robyn Crawford, whom she was in a relationship with until rumors spread about Houston's sexuality), implied sex, and heated discussion of infidelity. Strong language includes "f---ing," "s--t," "damn," "hell," and "ass." To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Based on 4 parent reviews

It might not live up to the hypness, but it does deliver a strong performance!

The life of whitney houston on the origins, what's the story.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Whitney Houston ( Naomi Ackie ) was a groundbreaking musical superstar. WHITNEY HOUSTON: I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY (named in honor of her most enduring hit) traces her life from teenage gospel soloist to background singer to pop icon ... and eventually to tabloid mainstay thanks to her substance abuse and contentious relationship with R&B star Bobby Brown (Ashton Sanders). Tamara Tunie co-stars as Houston's mom, soul singer Cissy Houston, and Stanley Tucci plays Houston's longtime producer Clive Davis.

Is It Any Good?

Most viewers will know exactly where this biopic is headed, but it avoids becoming a complete downer by concentrating largely on Houston's successes rather than her flaws. As Houston, Ackie is vibrant and sympathetic. She's larger than life, just as Houston was herself, and inhabits the movie's many full-length performance scenes with spine-tingling star oomph. Fans familiar with Houston's onstage high points -- including the 1994 American Music Awards medley that many call her greatest TV turn and her extraordinary 1991 rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" at Super Bowl 25 -- will likely break out in goosebumps watching Ackie powerfully reenacting those moments (although, no, she's not singing herself, except for a few moments when she sings between snatches of dialogue, though she does an excellent lip synch to Houston's vocals).

But in between high-point performances, things sag a bit. The movie rushes through many parts of Houston's story, a typical problem with films that try to condense decades' worth of life into a two-hour running time. And the movie doesn't seem to have a good idea of why Houston transitioned from being America's sweetheart to becoming a tabloid staple. Problems arise (Daddy steals Whitney's money, Brown cheats) and are just as quickly dismissed. Thankfully, I Wanna Dance with Somebody is refreshingly clear on the nature of Houston's relationship with her lifelong best friend, Robyn Crawford (they were a romantic couple until rumors spread about Houston's sexuality), and doesn't dwell on Houston's hit-bottom points: There's no mention of Brown and Houston's infamous reality show, for instance. Ultimately, though, you're left with the impression that you didn't learn much more about Houston than you knew going in, and that's a bitter pill to swallow considering the film's expansive 2-hour, 26-minute running time. But when Ackie takes the stage as Houston, this drama soars, and for fans, that may be enough.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the mix of fame, fortune, and drug problems that the music industry seems to serve up so frequently. According to Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody , do you think Houston's success influenced her substance abuse ?

Talk about TV and movie biopics. How true does a story have to be to a person's real life to be considered biographical? Is it appropriate to take creative license with someone's life story? What if it makes for better entertainment?

Have you ever learned something you didn't know about your favorite celebrity or media role model that was surprisingly negative? Did that change the way you felt about that person?

Movie Details

In theaters : December 23, 2022
On DVD or streaming : February 7, 2023
Cast : Naomi Ackie , Stanley Tucci , Tamara Tunie
Director : Kasi Lemmons
Inclusion Information : Female directors, Black directors, Female actors, Black actors
Studio : TriStar Pictures
Genre : Drama
Topics : Music and Sing-Along
Run time : 142 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : strong drug content, some strong language, suggestive references and smoking
Last updated : April 25, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’ Review: A Basic Whitney Houston Biopic Sets Her Wikipedia Page to Song

David ehrlich.

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A music biopic so broad and hacky it makes “Jersey Boys” seem like “All that Jazz,” Kasi Lemmons ’ well-acted but laughably trite “ Whitney Houston : I Wanna Dance with Somebody ” is an anonymous portrait of a singular artist — a by-the-numbers “Behind the Music” episode that needs 146 minutes to say almost nothing about a once-in-a-lifetime voice. Not even “Bohemian Rhapsody” was so obviously written by the guy who wrote “Bohemian Rhapsody,” as Anthony McCarten ’s algorithmic script skips down the various sections of Houston’s Wikipedia page with all the flow of a scratched greatest hits CD.

Here’s young Whitney as a choir soloist at the New Jersey church where she discovers her love for music. There she is at Arista Records’ HQ listening to the demo track for her future hit single, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” (“It’s about wanting to dance with somebody,” she says approvingly). Once her career takes off, the rest of her life is reduced to a diminishingly unsophisticated series of reactions to whatever happened in the previous scene, which doesn’t express Houston’s struggle to be everything to everyone so much as it does this movie’s desperation to be anything to anyone.

Whitney’s militaristic father demands that she break up with her secret girlfriend Robyn and play straight for the public? Cut to: Whitney announcing that she had sex with Jermaine Jackson. Whitney can’t stand the criticism that she isn’t Black enough? Cut to: Her flirting with rising R&B star Bobby Brown at the Soul Train Awards. Whitney mollifies Robyn’s panic with a calm “it’s not like we’re getting married?” Cut to: A scene we’ve been so well-trained to predict that actually watching it seems redundant (although it serves as a valuable reminder not to marry anyone tacky enough to pop the question in the back of a stretch limo).

Oh, well, it’s not as if there’s much hope left for Lemmons’ biopic at that point. Even by the time Whitney is discovered by Clive Davis at a New Jersey nightclub (an all-time groaner of a “you know that new sound you’re looking for?” moment), “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” has already become such a self-parody of its own genre that I kept waiting for Houston to perform a duet with Dewey Cox. At least that would have provided an unexpected note in an estate-approved film that’s been fully authorized within an inch of its life.

And yet, the abject laziness of the film’s construction isn’t quite enough to diminish the spirited zeal of its cast. That naturally begins with rising star Naomi Ackie (“Lady Macbeth”), whose radiant lead performance so convincingly suffuses octaves of feeling into a script full of flat notes that you will likely often forget she was lip-syncing Houston’s songs. Demure one minute, domineering the next, and always possessed with a self-belief that she can’t quite extend to the people around her, Ackie’s take on Houston would’ve been a wonderful character if this movie were as interested in the singer as it is in her songs.

As it stands, Whitney’s character development slows to a crawl shortly once she turns 19 and becomes Clive Davis’ new favorite client (the menschy, business-minded Davis is played by a very Stanley Tucci Stanley Tucci). It’s only during her earlier days — which “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” races through in about 15 minutes flat — that we get a clearer sense of what she wants, where she’s coming from, and what she might be afraid of leaving behind. Whitney’s relationship with her mom Cissy (the ever-reliable Tamara Tunie) is one of the film’s greatest strengths, never more so than during the scenes when she dragoons her teenage daughter into making the most of her god-given talents.

Does Cissy, a lifelong backup singer who feels overshadowed by nieces Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick, put undue pressure on Whitney to succeed where she fell short? It’s possible. But Cissy’s outsized ambition never comes at the expense of her maternal tenderness, and Tunie’s carefully balanced performance speaks volumes about the source of Whitney’s strength, just as Clarke Peters’ incisive but unflattering take on the superstar’s hyper-patriarchal father speaks volumes about Whitney’s struggle to own that strength offstage.

Defanged as this film can feel, that it was made with full support of the singer’s brother and sister-in-law makes it all the more damning that her father comes off as such a womanizing money monster (it’s funny that Cissy doesn’t age a day across the script’s almost 40-year span, while John Houston devolves from virile DILF to the Crypt Keeper as if sin itself were ravaging his skin).

It’s also during those formative teenage years that Whitney befriends Robyn Crawford (a compelling Nafessa Williams, who ironically played Bobby Brown’s pregnant ex-girlfriend in the Angela Bassett-directed Lifetime movie “Whitney,” one of the previous Houston bio-projects that “profoundly disappointed the fans and the people closest to her,” according to a saucy line in the press notes for “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”). The two cross paths in a meet-cute that’s scripted and scripted with all the excitement of swiping a Metrocard, but Ackie and Williams embrace the ease of their characters’ mutual attraction.

(LtoR) Stanley Tucci and Naomi Ackie in TRISTAR pictures I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY

Sadly relegated to the stuff of rumor until after Houston’s death, the singer’s relationship with Crawford is at least somewhat reclaimed here as — if not the greatest love of all — the rare circumstance in Houston’s life when love gave to her without taking. What Houston gave back to Crawford is less clear, as this movie is too busy jumping between the bullet points of Houston’s biography to bother exploring how she felt about her. Ostracized and neglected as Crawford may have been by Houston’s family, it’s hard to imagine that Houston herself was as cruelly indifferent to her ex-girlfriend and creative director as she appears here.

Overstuffed and underwritten, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” falls back on Whitney’s feeling of being spread thin between too many people at once as an excuse for making her a passenger in this warp-speed telling of her own life story. Things eventually move fast enough that scenes bleed into each other over the soundtrack, the beats of McCarten’s checklist-like script smudged by the constant undercurrents of crowd noise that carry the movie from one concert to the next.

The film’s cram-it-all-in approach makes it impossible for “Eve’s Bayou” director Lemmons to assert her usual control, or to anchor even the most tragic moments of Houston’s life with the gravity they deserve (the scene where she miscarries during the middle of a take while shooting “The Bodyguard” feels nearly as artificial as the CGI fighter jets that scream over her Super Bowl performance).

Grateful as fans might be that this glossy biopic doesn’t go full “Blonde,” the bit where Bobby turns violent would barely even register if not for the volatility of Ashton Sanders ’ clenched performance, while more time is spent on the covert manner by which Whitney acquired her drugs than on why she began using them in the first place. And while Whitney’s relationship with her daughter is too pure for even the most superficial of biopics to diminish its love and sadness, those feelings exist purely in the abstract, and don’t feel any more nuanced or personal than they would have without the previous two hours as a prelude.

“Every song is a story,” someone says, “if it’s not a story, it’s not a song.” Well, all-time chart-toppers like “When You Believe,” “Higher Love,” and “I Will Always Love You” are definitely songs, so where are the stories behind them? Watching “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” I couldn’t help but wonder if if McCarten-esque karaoke biopics — which unfold more like animated jukeboxes than full-bodied dramas — don’t fail at honoring their subjects so much as they succeed at letting audiences sing along to their lives.

Maybe people want to watch a movie for the first time and feel as if they can already mouth the words to every line, because the real subject of these music biopics aren’t the icons who inspired them, but rather the enjoyment that we continue to take from their work… and the streaming money that our rediscovered enthusiasm inspires from us in turn. We used to have greatest hits CDs, and now we have glorified cosplay. And yet the cosplay is obviously great here, and so are the hits.

“To sing with the gods,” one character says, “sometimes you need a ladder.” Or maybe you just need the rights.

Sony Pictures will release “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody” in theaters on Friday, December 23.

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Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody Review

26 Dec 2022

I Wanna Dance With Somebody

Hollywood can’t seem to escape the formulaic music biopic: the recounting of a star’s life in the most conventional way possible, cramming every trial and tribulation into a single sitting. For every film that tries to break the mould ( Rocketman ), there's at least one more that follows the formula to the letter ( Bohemian Rhapsody ). The latest entry, Kasi Lemmons ’ I Wanna Dance With Somebody, largely follows this blueprint to the letter.

To the film’s credit, Lemmons’s solid encapsulation of Houston's life from strict church upbringing to superstardom portrays the singer as humanely as possible. Her early struggles to be herself, her relationships — particularly with friend and assistant Robyn Crawford (Nafessa Williams), mother Cissy (Tamara Tunie) and producer Clive Davis ( Stanley Tucci ) — and her commodification by the music industry as “America’s Princess” add fuel to the fire. It's a promising start.

It's Ackie's impactful performance that elevates this film.

As the legendary star, Naomi Ackie delivers a commanding performance, channelling every iota of Houston's mannerisms and magnetism; it's a career high point for the Star Wars actor. When the film excels — most notably Whitney’s performance of the famous ‘impossible medley’ at the American Music Awards, where she sang 'I Loves You, Porgy', 'And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going' and 'I Have Nothing' — Ackie’s uncanny embodiment reminds you of Houston's soul-stirring power, and why she was rightly named, by musician Andy Gill, as “the greatest voice of her generation”.

There are faithful recreations, too, of Whitney’s iconic music videos, and her famous performance at the 1991 Super Bowl. But despite its 146-minute runtime, the film struggles to cram everything in. The script by Anthony McCarten (who also wrote Bohemian Rhapsody ) rarely rises above surface-level analogies.

In capturing Whitney’s entire life, the Wikipedia-style exploration is not prepared to dive deeply enough into the emotional complexities and nuances of those key moments (such as the scrutiny, at the time, of Whitney’s music not being ‘Black enough’). The film's tendency to rush off to the next moment creates a tonal whiplash between scenes. It's Ackie's impactful performance that elevates this film; her epic, textured performance is what you'll remember after the lights go down.

Movies | 09 11 2022

TV and Streaming | Review: ‘Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with…

TV and Streaming

Things to do, tv and streaming | review: ‘whitney houston: i wanna dance with somebody’ is a well-acted biopic about not just a voice, but the voice.

Emily Aragones/AP

Robyn Crawford (Nafessa Williams) and Whitney Houston (Naomi Ackie) share a moment in "Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody."

www.album-online.com/TNS

Naomi Ackie recreates the 1991 Super Bowl "Star-Spangled Banner" sequence in "Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody."

Stanley Tucci and Naomi Ackie in "Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody."

The unmatchable voice of the late pop phenomenon, not just any voice but The Voice, comes through, rangy, supercharged and ever-amazing, on the big hits newly remixed from Houston’s original vocals. Nobody’s trying to sing like Whitney Houston while playing the role of Whitney Houston.

And no, Ackie doesn’t physically resemble Houston, whose story here begins in 1983, singing in the Baptist church choir led by her mother, Cissy, and ends with Houston’s 2012 death in the bathtub of a Beverly Hilton suite.

Both no’s are fine with me. They’re choices, not mistakes — questions of casting (look-alike, or not so much?) and musical approach (subject’s voice, lip-synced by leading performer, or not?) every biopic of any musical great must answer.

This one is directed with a straightforward, humane touch by Kasi Lemmons (whose previous pictures include “Eve’s Bayou,” the criminally under-seen Don Cheadle-starring “Talk to Me” and “Harriet”). It has its standard-issue components and the air of a highly official presentation of events. The Houston estate representatives, along with Arista Records legend Clive Davis, Houston’s mentor and sounding board, are all over this thing.

Gratifyingly, screenwriter Anthony McCarten deals with Houston’s crucial lifelong friendship, eventual working relationship and (years before her marriage to Bobby Brown) romantic life with Robyn Crawford. Ackie’s loose, funny early scenes with Nafessa Williams’ Crawford give the movie what it needs to go somewhere.

The air of sensual freedom doesn’t last. “Be seen with young men,” warns Houston’s father, played by Clarke Peters, who wrests control of the empire once his daughter’s first album explodes in 1985. This was no time for coming out and staying on top, in the eyes of the media and certainly in the eyes of Houston’s immediate family. (Tamara Tunie plays Cissy, whose mantra for her daughter’s attack on a song is a simple but difficult: “head. heart. gut.”)

A sexually fluid superstar with deep roots in Christianity and the bad luck of falling prey to manipulators and users within her family circle never had a fighting chance at inner peace. “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” manages to suggest some nuance and ambiguity in Houston’s key relationships, and within her own ambitions.

The actors and director Lemmons accomplish what the screenplay does only partially: make us believe the circumstances and the behavior. Ashton Sanders’ Bobby Brown gives us the weasel but also the man. In a role slightly larger than required, I think, Arista legend Davis has the bonus of being played by ever-wry, ever-winning Stanley Tucci.

In the end it is Ackie’s show. If there’s anything missing from her idea of Houston, it’s the tension between the image — “the first Black white-friendly all-American girl,” as she calls herself at one point — and the fervent, family-bound, dutiful yet drug-addled performance beast, who toured ’til she dropped, very nearly. For all that, Ackie has a light touch, and a convincing handle on every stage of the life she’s depicting.

McCarten got an Oscar nomination for “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which was a pretty badly written, directed and edited biopic, but it made nearly a billion dollars worldwide because people like Freddie Mercury and Rami Malek did a nice job with him. I’m not sure audiences care a lot about quality in their showbiz sagas as long as the music’s there and they can sing along with it, or at least remember what it meant to them the first time they heard it.

“I Wanna Dance with Somebody” culminates with Houston’s walloping medley, at the 1994 American Music Awards,” of “I Loves You, Porgy” (from “Porgy and Bess”), “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” (from “Dreamgirls”) and “I Have Nothing” (from “The Bodyguard”). The movie’s two-hour, 20-minute running time, not counting end credits, is what it is because we hear and see several of Houston’s performance scenes in full, or close to full. I appreciate that. “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” easily twice the biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody” was, takes its time where it should.

Another way to put it: It’s good.

“Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody” — 3 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG-13 (for strong drug content, some strong language, smoking and suggestive references)

Running time: 2:26

How to watch: Premieres in theaters Dec. 22.

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.

[email protected]

Twitter @phillipstribune

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Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022)

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Review: Superstar biopic ‘Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ is decidedly off-key

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When remembering the iconic life and career of Whitney Houston , there are many defining moments that instantly spring to mind: when she obliterated “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Super Bowl in 1991, thereby rendering all other versions subpar, her soaring rendition of Dolly Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” from “The Bodyguard,” or even her concert at Wembley Stadium in honor of Nelson Mandela. In the new biopic “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” those moments are acknowledged, albeit briefly. Instead, writer-producer Anthony McCarten has chosen to bookend this slog through Houston’s career and all-too-short life with … her performance at the 1994 American Music Awards?

Indeed, the 10-minute medley, which is re-created in full, was a virtuosic vocal performance of which only Houston was capable, but this deep cut seems an odd choice to open and close the film. It’s the kind of choice that makes one question everything in “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” a film that is not engrossing enough on its own to prevent one’s mind from wandering toward the nagging questions about who made these decisions and why.

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Director Kasi Lemmons is behind the camera, though McCarten , the writer of such award-winning biopics as “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “The Darkest Hour,” “The Theory of Everything” and “The Two Popes,” is the driving force, having purchased the rights to Houston’s life and written the screenplay on spec. Legendary music mogul Clive Davis is also a producer, as well as Pat Houston, Whitney’s sister-in-law, former manager and the executor of her estate. Davis is played by Stanley Tucci in the film as a warm father figure and confidant for Whitney, while Kris Sidberry has a small role as Pat.

British actress Naomi Ackie bravely takes on the impossible task that is portraying Houston. While Ackie transforms herself, and nails all the Whitney-style mannerisms and gestures, the fact of the matter is that Whitney Houston’s talent and beauty was otherworldly in a way that mere mortals simply cannot channel.

As the film, set to the beat of that steady music biopic rhythm, progresses from hit song to hit song, with careful selections from Whitney’s complicated life playing out in between, the whole thing starts to feel like a promotion of her back catalog. What McCarten chooses to reveal and conceal in Whitney’s story is telling, especially if you’ve seen any of the documentaries about her life; 2017’s “Whitney: Can I Be Me?” or 2018’s “Whitney.”

The sensitive details of Whitney’s life are approached with blunt instruments rather than incisiveness, and what’s left out seems indicative of who’s telling the story and why. Her romantic relationship with close friend Robyn (Nafessa Williams) is presented early and candidly, and the film implies her substance abuse issues are related to her repressed sexuality and the pressure to perform at the behest of her exploitative father John (Clarke Peters) and demanding, perfectionist mother Cissy (Tamara Tunie). Whitney’s drug use is presented as a solo endeavor, or as a part of her relationship with R&B bad boy Bobby Brown (Ashton Sanders), while other members of her inner circle are let off the hook.

Lemmons is a talented and experienced filmmaker, but cinematically, “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” is inert, leaving one to ponder if she was hamstrung by producers, the script, or shooting during the pandemic. There is no sense of world-building or life beyond the edges of the frame. Lemmons and Ackie faithfully re-create some of Whitney’s memorable music videos, but it always feels like Ackie is wearing a Whitney Houston costume rather than inhabiting a fully realized human being.

As the film progresses toward Whitney’s tragic end, it starts to take on a distinctly ghoulish quality, especially a scene that imagines her frame of mind before her death. It’s a film that ultimately feels less like a celebration and more like further exploitation of the star, leaving us all with much more unsettling questions about Houston’s life and legacy. Sadly, the disappointing “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” doesn’t let Whitney rest in peace.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

Rated: PG-13, for strong drug content, some strong language, suggestive references and smoking Running time: 2 hours, 26 minutes Playing: Starts Dec. 23 in general release

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Whitney houston: i wanna dance with somebody review - great cast, standard biopic.

For a biopic, I Wanna Dance with Somebody follows the norms of the genre but allows Naomi Ackie to deliver a sensational performance in the process.

Nearly 11 years ago, global sensation and renowned superstar Whitney E. Houston shocked the world with her untimely death. Because of her remarkable artistry, which later deemed her "The Voice," she’s had great influence on pop culture as it exists today. Given her celebrity, Houston’s life has been documented onscreen in a variety of projects. In 2018, Whitney , which premiered at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, became the second of three documentaries on the star’s life. More recently, Lifetime premiered the biographical film, Whitney , which starred Yaya DaCosta as the titular character with Angela Bassett in the director’s chair. Now, Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody sees a chronological telling of the late singer’s rise to fame in addition to the problems she faced in the process.

Whitney Houston was a vocal powerhouse and star from the moment she entered show business. Directed by Kasi Lemmons from a script written by Academy Award nominee Anthony McCarten, who also penned the script for Bohemian Rhapsody , the film portrays the complexities of the multifaceted woman behind major hits like her rendition of Dolly Parton’s "I Will Always Love You" and "I Have Nothing." From New Jersey choir girl to one of the best-selling and most awarded recording artists of all time, viewers can expect an inspirational and emotional journey of Whitney Houston’s trailblazing career, with great performance depictions and insight into the woman behind the voice. For a biopic, I Wanna Dance with Somebody follows the norms of the genre but allows Naomi Ackie, who stars as the late singer, to deliver a sensational performance in the process.

Related: Whitney Houston Movie Trailer Re-Creates Iconic Super Bowl Performance

With so many documentaries and films before this one, I Wanna Dance with Somebody doesn’t have much else to reveal about the beloved and iconic singer that was Whitney Houston. For all intents and purposes, Lemmons’ feature acts less like a history lesson (despite its storytelling model) and more like a celebration of all that Houston was, for better or worse. Sure, McCarten’s script crams in every possible major hit and occurrence into the film, but that enables Lemmons to let loose in reminding audiences why Houston was such a star.

That said, there are some missing pieces from which the film could have benefited. Early childhood years, for example, could have impacted the story further, giving audiences insight into how Houston developed such a powerhouse voice. In lieu of featuring these elements, I Wanna Dance with Somebody relies on viewers’ existing knowledge of the superstar, only briefly giving insights into what led to her troubles. On the other hand, the reliance on her voice and less on her problems and tragedies is what makes Lemmons’ latest a fun and easy watch. It gives the audience a sense of joy, which ultimately comes off as a celebration of life instead of rehashing the intricacies of Houston's personal struggles.

While the creative team behind I Wanna Dance with Somebody puts in very little effort to avoid being just another biopic, it is the cast that goes above and beyond to bring a picture to the big screen that is worth the watch. Naomi Ackie truly commits to delivering a performance that brings in equal amounts of laughs and tears. For viewers unfamiliar with her work, now is the time to get behind her remarkable talent. Black Lightning’s Nafessa Williams also delivers a wondrous performance as Houston’s long-time best friend Robyn Crawford. If there’s anything to take away from this story through their performances alone, it’s that everlasting friendship among women is a blessing.

In the end, Lemmons and McCarten’s chronological overview of Houston’s stardom is a fine biopic that doesn’t offer new insights — at least not to longtime fans of the singer. What it lacks in showcasing the woman behind the voice it makes up for in the depictions of some of Houston’s most recognized performances. I Wanna Dance with Somebody celebrates the star that captured the hearts of many fans around the world. And through a great performance by Ackie, this film has the ability to do the same, even if it sticks to genre rules.

More: Babylon Review: Robbie Is Alluring In Chazelle's Glitzy, Hollow Ode To Hollywood

I Wanna Dance with Somebody will release in theaters nationwide on December 23. The film is 146 minutes long and rated PG-13 for strong drug content, some strong language, suggestive references, and smoking.

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Naomi Ackie as Whitney Houston in I Wanna Dance With Somebody.

I Wanna Dance With Somebody review – doggedly formulaic Whitney Houston biopic

The singer’s voice is mostly lip-synced, by British actor Naomi Ackie, but this by-numbers film falls well short of capturing Houston’s mega-watt appeal

G iven the movie-friendly trajectory of Whitney Houston’s life and career (stellar rise; glittering success; tragic fall: check!), the main surprise is that it took as long as it did for her to end up as fodder for the always-hungry music biopic industry. What’s no surprise at all, unfortunately, is that this doggedly formulaic picture struggles to capture even a fraction of the electrifying sparkle of Houston at the peak of her powers. As music mogul Clive Davis (Stanley Tucci) says, having just had his comb-over blasted several feet off his balding pate by the young Whitney’s vocal range, hers was a once-in-a-generation voice.

Not surprisingly, it’s predominantly Houston’s voice we hear in the film, with British actor Naomi Ackie lip-syncing pretty convincingly in the central role. But Houston was more than just that incredible voice. Her stage presence, her style, her winning charisma: it all combined into something unique. Something that Ackie only sporadically captures.

It should be stressed that the problem doesn’t lie with Ackie necessarily, but rather with a leaden, by-numbers screenplay from Anthony McCarten, who brings to this film the same box-ticking approach he employed with Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody . And director Kasi Lemmons seems content to skim through the early part of Houston’s journey in a flighty, extended montage, only slowing down to dig into the story once the addiction has kicked in, the marriage is imploding and Houston’s downfall is under way.

This slightly salacious fascination with the fall from glory is something that I Wanna Dance With Somebody shares with numerous other music biopics. But unlike Walk the Line , say, or Ray , there is no redemptive arc to soften the blow. At the film’s conclusion, Lemmons refrains from showing Houston’s death (although there are a few too many pointed shots of dripping bath taps), instead opting for a flashback to a high point in the singer’s career. It’s a powerful device, but one that doesn’t feel entirely sincere.

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Whitney Houston

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Review: Clumsy Whitney Houston biopic mars its star’s skill

This image released by Sony Pictures shows Naomi Ackie in Tristar’s “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody.” (Emily Aragones/Sony Pictures via AP)

CORRECTS THE POSITION OF DAVIS AND TUCCI IN THE FRAME - Clive Davis, left, and Stanley Tucci attend the world premiere of “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody” at AMC Lincoln Square on Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2022, in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

This image released by Sony Pictures shows Stanley Tucci, left, and Naomi Ackie in Tristar’s “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody.” (Emily Aragones/Sony Pictures via AP)

This image released by Sony Pictures shows Nafessa Williams, left, and Naomi Ackie in Tristar’s “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody.” (Emily Aragones/Sony Pictures via AP)

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Whitney Houston’s voice was one of a kind and the creative team behind a new big-budget biopic of the singer had no choice but to agree.

Naomi Ackie, who plays Houston in “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” turns in a fierce performance but is asked to lip-sync throughout to Houston biggest hits. The effect is, at best, an expensive karaoke session.

The dilemma that Houston’s own prodigious gift put everyone in is understandable: The chances of finding someone who resembles the singer is hard enough; finding someone who also has the awe-inducing, fluttery vocal ability is a fool’s errand.

But the solution would have been choosing between focusing on Houston’s story or making a documentary that features her singing. It’s unfair to ask Ackie to act her heart out and also have her execute large parts of Houston’s iconic live performances in mimic mode. It’s an uncanny canyon.

The movie is written by Anthony McCarten, who told Freddie Mercury’s story in “Bohemian Rhapsody” and is having quite a moment with two shows on Broadway — “The Collaboration” about artists Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat and “A Beautiful Noise,” a musical about Neil Diamond. McCarten clearly has impressed producers with an ability to tell the stories of modern icons but with Houston the hook is, well, business pressure.

“I Wanna Dance With Somebody” is more like a hyped-up “Behind the Music” episode set to Houston’s greatest hits album. It leans on all the cliches: overbearing parents, bad-boy boyfriends and giddy, champagne-popping montages on the way up and sullen montages on the way down as she’s hunted by paparazzi.

Houston is portrayed as a woman who seizes her destiny only late in her cut-short life after struggling with the burden of being the family breadwinner for most of it.

“Everyone is using me as an ATM!” she screams at one point.

Stanley Tucci plays a subdued and concerned Clive Davis — the record executive helped produce the film and comes off like a prince — and Nafessa Williams is superb as Houston’s best friend, manager and lover.

McCarten frames the climax of Houston’s life at the 1994 American Music Awards, where she won eight awards and performed a medley of songs. It is where director Kasi Lemmons’ camera starts and ends, part of an excruciating final section goodbye to the icon that lasts for what feels like an hour and ends with a heavy-handed, written statement that Houston was the “greatest voice of her generation.”

Credit to the Houston estate for not sanitizing Houston’s life, showing her early love affair with a woman, her pushy, demanding parents, the backlash from some in the Black community and not shying away from the descent into drugs that would kill her in 2012 at age 48.

“To sing with the gods, you sometimes need a ladder,” Houston rationalizes in the movie.

Some highlights of the film include Houston and Davis picking hit songs in his office and the recreations of the filming of the video “How Will I Know” and Houston’s triumphant national anthem performance at Super Bowl XXV. Costume designer Charlese Antoinette Jones has joyously remade key looks, from Houston’s hair bow and arm warmers to the stunning wedding dress with beaded and sequined cloche hat.

Less well-realized is the section exploring her filming of “The Bodyguard” — the filmmakers try to pass off an old clip of Kevin Costner on the set, a trick they try again later with Oprah — and the portrayal of husband Bobby Brown is not nuanced, leaving him the clear villain of the piece. Lemmons (“Harriet”) also uses a recurring image of a faucet dripping, a graceless way of foreshadowing her death.

Ackie’s performance is something to be cheered, reaching for the the kind of authenticity that Andra Day channeled when she also tackled a doomed musical icon in “The United States vs. Billie Holiday.”

But so much clumsiness, scenes featuring unnaturally heightened drama with little insight and the compromised authenticity of the performances drag “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” down — ultimately, it’s not right but it’s just OK.

“I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” a Sony Pictures release exclusively in theaters Dec. 23, is rated PG-13 for “strong drug content, some strong language, suggestive references and smoking.” Running time: 146 minutes. Two stars out of four.

MPAA Definition of PG-13: Parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

Online: https://www.iwannadancewithsomebody.movie

Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody parents guide

Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody Parent Guide

At three hours, this movie manages to feel both overlong and strangely rushed..

Theaters: In the 1980's a young Whitney Houston is discovered and rises to superstardom only to struggle with drugs and complicated relationships.

Release date December 22, 2022

Run Time: 146 minutes

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The guide to our grades, parent movie review by kirsten hawkes.

Whitney Houston (Naomi Ackie) was born with two gifts: first, a spectacular voice, and second, a mother (Tamara Tunie) whose own musical career enabled her to train her daughter and give her the exposure necessary to make it in the music industry. But even for a girl with a golden voice, there are no guarantees…

Moviegoers over the age of twenty will be familiar with Whitney Houston’s hit songs and amazing vocal range. Director Kasi Lemmons is clearly fascinated by Ms. Houston and her musical gifts and tries to help audiences understand the artist and enjoy her most iconic performances. She almost pulls it off.

Ms. Lemmons is somewhat less successful in helping us understand Whitney Houston’s inner life. For an overlong film, I Wanna Dance With Somebody feels rushed, with some important issues being short-changed. Houston’s lesbian relationship with Robyn Crawford (Nafessa Williams) starts believably but evolves into a platonic friendship with only minimal discussion. The long-term effects of giving up that relationship are also not explored. Houston’s marriage is equally difficult to understand: it’s never entirely clear why she decides to marry Bobby Brown (Ashton Sanders), a man six years her junior who comes with lots of baggage, including a pregnant ex-girlfriend. Audiences will also wonder why Houston has such a hard time fighting free of her dishonest and manipulative father (Clarke Peters). In fact, the only relationship in the film that makes sense is the one with her mother. Cissy Houston knows exactly what it takes to make it in the music industry, but she never forgets that her daughter is a person with limits and vulnerabilities.

Sadly, Whitney Houston’s vulnerabilities are widely known: her drug use was tabloid fodder for years before her unfortunate death. The film doesn’t gloss over her addictions and Houston is shown getting drunk, smoking marijuana, and using crack. None of this behavior is glamorized and one wrenching scene sees her, stoned and sitting in a walk-in closet, where the walls are covered in scribbled words and strange images. This movie is practically an extended play version of a “Just Say No” ad. For me, one of the most wrenching sights is Whitney Houston smoking cigarettes, despite the cost to her voice. As her ever-faithful producer, Clive Davis tells her, “For you, smoking is like leaving a stradivarius out in the rain.” The abuse of such a precious natural gift is hard to watch.

Much of this film is hard to watch, and it doesn’t end well. Whitney Houston’s life is a matter of public record, and for the 50-year-olds in the theater with me, it’s a matter of memory. For older audiences, this movie is a stroll down a musical memory lane. Whether or not this will appeal to younger audiences remains to be seen.

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Kirsten hawkes, watch the trailer for whitney houston: i wanna dance with somebody.

Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody Rating & Content Info

Why is Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody rated PG-13? Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for strong drug content, some strong language, smoking, and suggestive references

Violence: There are loud verbal arguments between husbands and wives. In one scene, a man grabs his wife by the jaw and threatens her. She threatens to get a gun to protect herself from him. There is mention of an offscreen accidental death. An angry woman throws plates and other household objects while she yells. Sexual Content: There is an implied lesbian relationship with scenes of women embracing and kissing. There are scenes of a man and woman kissing. There are implied sexual relationships between unmarried men and women but there is no on-screen content. A woman is hospitalized for a miscarriage. An adulterous relationship is mentioned. Profanity: There are just over three dozen profanities in the script, including 12 scatological curses, 10 terms of deity, seven anatomical phrases, seven minor profanities, and a single sexual expletive. There are also two sexual hand gestures. Alcohol / Drug Use: An adult smokes cigars. Main characters smoke cigarettes, sometimes to combat stress. There are frequent scenes of alcohol consumption in social contexts and in situations where the alcohol is being abused. There are several scenes of main characters using or preparing to use drugs, including marijuana and crack. A main character is shown severely damaged by drugs, in a large closet with bizarre words and images written on the walls.

Page last updated January 22, 2024

Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody Parents' Guide

What factors do you think contributed to Whitney Houston’s final collapse? How do you think her father, her husband, and her drug abuse affected her? How do you think her relationship with Robyn impacted her life? Why do you think she continued to smoke, despite tobacco’s obviously harmful effects on her voice? Do you struggle with any self-destructive behaviors? What resources are available to help you?

You can learn more about Whitney Houston at the links below:

History vs Hollywood: Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody (2022)

Wikipedia: Whitney Houston

The Guardian: “Our friendship was intimate on all levels”: Robyn Crawford on her love for Whitney Houston

'I Wanna Dance with Somebody' review: Whitney Houston biopic sings a frustratingly familiar tune

A talented young musician becomes a pop icon in the 1980s, recording beloved songs during their precipitous rise before a fall due to bad influences and vices .

This just so happens to be the plot of both the new Whitney Houston drama “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” and the Al Yankovic comedy “Weird,” expressly created to parody musical biopics like the former. And although Naomi Ackie is fabulous as Houston , “I Wanna Dance” frustratingly clings to that familiar formula.

Directed by Kasi Lemmons (“Harriet”), the film (★★ out of four; rated PG-13; streaming now on Netflix ) is a cursory examination of Houston’s life story with a pretty great soundtrack, starting from a young girl with a huge voice singing in her New Jersey church choir – and under the watchful eye of her mother, Cissy (Tamara Tunie). Whitney is discovered by record producer Clive Davis ( Stanley Tucci ), quickly becomes a superstar, gets involved with (and marries) R&B artist Bobby Brown (Ashton Sanders), and struggles with drug addiction before her death in 2012 at age 48 .

How accurate is it? Fact checking 'I Wanna Dance With Somebody,' the new Whitney Houston movie

“Somebody” is way too long at two hours and 26 minutes – almost every movie is guilty of that particular sin right now – but worse, it feels it. Anthony McCarten wrote this as well as “ Bohemian Rhapsody ,” a best picture nominee that was anything but, and Houston’s tale ultimately takes the same tack as his Queen biopic: a Wikipedia entry come to middling life on screen.

The pop singer’s songs lean toward the legendary – with tracks like “Greatest Love of All,” “I Will Always Love You” and, of course, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” – and Lemmons captures the electricity of Houston’s music in the movie’s best scenes. She re-creates the “How Will I Know” video for a nostalgic treat, and the chills are still real for Houston’s famous rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the 1991 Super Bowl. (One nitpick: Some performance scenes spend an oddly long time looking at the crowd. We get it, she was awesome.)

'I Wanna Dance with Somebody' star Naomi Ackie: Playing Whitney Houston made me 'anxious'

As with Rami Malek’s Freddie Mercury in “Rhapsody,” Ackie’s own voice is heard at times, though mainly she’s performing to Houston’s own signature vocals. And the actress does an exceptional job capturing the pop singer’s mannerisms and performance style in those moments.

It’s everything else in between that’s the real problem. “Somebody” runs through episodes in Houston’s personal and professional lives without fleshing out anything nuanced or surprising. Too often, it’s Clive coming to her with an opportunity (like the ambitious “Impossible Medley” or the movie “The Bodyguard” movie with Kevin Costner ), she initially balking before saying yes, and then it becoming a thing, rinse, repeat.

Whitney Houston: Her legacy and voice live on in Vegas hologram show

One of the narrative through-lines that might have people Googling afterward is Whitney’s romantic relationship with Robyn Crawford (Nafessa Williams). They met as teens and became girlfriends, and when Whitney is veered toward relationships with men, Robyn sticks around as Whitney’s assistant and tries to steady her – especially with Brown in her life – to no avail. That aspect and several others (such as the “Bodyguard” stuff and the national anthem taking place days after we went to war) would have made better focal points for a window-in-time story than the soup-to-nuts take.

Williams brings a grounded energy to Robyn, arguably the least-known main character in this real-life story, and it’s a decently acted affair overall: Like Ackie, Tucci nicely inhabits Davis as a mentor as Tunie does playing Houston’s mom. Sanders, so powerful in “Moonlight,” is a bit wasted here in a one-note role as Brown.

“I Wanna Dance with Somebody” takes a musically exciting, narratively watered-down look at a pop-culture icon’s life, and while it might be enough to satisfy many Houston fans, the greatest voice of her generation deserves more than a middling biopic.

Whitney Houston: National anthem rendition remains iconic 30 years after Super Bowl 25

MIH: 'Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody' Exclusive Interviews

Dec 22, 2022 - Made in Hollywood speaks exclusively with Naomi Ackie, Nafessa Williams, and director Kasi Lemmons about their new movie, the challenges of bringing Whitney Houston's story to the big screen, the singer's friendship with Robyn Crawford, and how Ackie learned all of Houston's iconic dance moves.

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I Will Always Love You: Whitney Houston's greatest songs

Posted: January 5, 2024 | Last updated: January 5, 2024

<p>With countless hits under her belt, it can be easy to forget that some of Whitney Houston’s strongest records were never released as singles at all. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GIQ7UwZkuo">“Dear John Letter”</a> is a prime example of this—although the track was never released to radio, the song is a great illustration of Whitney’s talent for hiding sad, reflective <a href="https://genius.com/Whitney-houston-dear-john-letter-lyrics">lyrics</a> behind a poppy, fun melody.</p>

From deep cuts to No. 1s, here are the best songs from the superstar’s untouchable catalogue.

<p>What we have here is an embarrassment of riches between two great voices and artists. Dolly Parton's original country version (1974), understated and sincere, is a genre classic. Whitney Houston's version, despite its denser arrangement, is equally good, if not more poignant. The power of Houston's voice and her warm tones are absolutely heartrending. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o5wccZgsy4%20target=">Even Dolly was greatly moved when she heard it. In fact, she had to pull her car over when it came on the radio!</a> </p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JWTaaS7LdU%20target=">Listen to the song on YouTube</a></p>

I Will Always Love You (1992)

Although “I Will Always Love You” has been immortalized as one of Whitney Houston’s most unforgettable hits, many fans will be surprised to know that the song is a cover. Dolly Parton was the first to record the self-penned hit, which Whitney later covered for the soundtrack to The Bodyguard , a movie she starred in alongside Kevin Costner in 1992. Dolly’s iconic songwriting plus Whitney’s incomparable vocals? Truly a match made in heaven.

<p>In 1985, Whitney Houston was already a promising young talent with the release of her self-titled debut album, but <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3-hY-hlhBg">“How Will I Know”</a> cemented her status as a superstar. Her second No. 1 hit after “Saving All My Love for You<em>,</em>” this track fortunately fell into her capable hands after Janet Jackson turned the track <a href="https://www.stereogum.com/2107774/the-number-ones-whitney-houstons-how-will-i-know/columns/the-number-ones/">down</a>.</p>

How Will I Know (1985)

In 1985, Whitney Houston was already a promising young talent with the release of her self-titled debut album, but “How Will I Know” cemented her status as a superstar. Her second No. 1 hit after “Saving All My Love for You , ” this track fortunately fell into her capable hands after Janet Jackson turned the track down .

<p>Despite the somewhat misleading title, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YjSHbA6HQQ">“So Emotional”</a> is far from a somber tearjerker. Instead, the track is a smooth, infectious piece of <a href="https://www.stereogum.com/2142949/the-number-ones-whitney-houstons-so-emotional/columns/the-number-ones/">dance pop</a> that proves that Whitney Houston could produce club hits just as convincingly as she could belt out her trademark heartfelt ballads.</p>

So Emotional (1987)

Despite the somewhat misleading title, “So Emotional” is far from a somber tearjerker. Instead, the track is a smooth, infectious piece of dance pop that proves that Whitney Houston could produce club hits just as convincingly as she could belt out her trademark heartfelt ballads.

<p>Without question, Whitney Houston was the queen of the movie soundtrack. On top of <em>The Bodyguard, </em>she also worked on the soundtrack for <a href="https://www.mtv.com/news/ewfcgo/whitney-houston-dead-movie-sountracks">numerous movies</a> including <em>The Prince of Egypt, Waiting to Exhale </em>and <em>The Preacher’s Wife</em>, which she starred in alongside Denzel Washington. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWa5vE4MUpU">“Step by Step”</a> is a standout track from <em>The Preacher’s Wife</em> soundtrack, and served as an example of how great music can take a movie to new heights.</p>

Step by Step (1997)

Without question, Whitney Houston was the queen of the movie soundtrack. On top of The Bodyguard, she also worked on the soundtrack for numerous movies including The Prince of Egypt, Waiting to Exhale and The Preacher’s Wife , which she starred in alongside Denzel Washington. “Step by Step” is a standout track from The Preacher’s Wife soundtrack, and served as an example of how great music can take a movie to new heights.

Greatest Love of All (1986)

Whitney has countless amazing covers in her discography, and “Greatest Love of All” is one of them. Before Whitney’s version made the song a worldwide hit, it was penned by Michael Masser and Linda Creed, the latter of whom reflected on her struggle with breast cancer while writing the song’s empowering, soulful lyrics.

<p>Recorded for her seventh and final studio album, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iw3WbIbeXEU">“I Didn’t Know My Own Strength”</a> is an empowerment anthem that served as a response to the scrutiny surrounding Whitney’s personal life. Instead of offering the public salacious details of her personal struggles, this classy tune reflected on Whitney’s ability to overcome adversity.</p>

I Didn’t Know My Own Strength (2009)

Recorded for her seventh and final studio album, “I Didn’t Know My Own Strength” is an empowerment anthem that served as a response to the scrutiny surrounding Whitney’s personal life. Instead of offering the public salacious details of her personal struggles, this classy tune reflected on Whitney’s ability to overcome adversity.

<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewxmv2tyeRs">“Saving All My Love for You”</a> was Whitney’s <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/whitney-houston-earns-her-first-1-hit-with-saving-all-my-love-for-you">first No. 1</a> on the <em>Billboard</em> 100 chart, but it certainly wouldn’t be her last. Though the superstar would go on to earn a whopping 10 additional chart-toppers in her decades-long career, her first big hit remains among her best.</p>

Saving All My Love for You (1985)

“Saving All My Love for You” was Whitney’s first No. 1 on the Billboard 100 chart, but it certainly wouldn’t be her last. Though the superstar would go on to earn a whopping 10 additional chart-toppers in her decades-long career, her first big hit remains among her best.

<p>In one of Whitney’s greatest <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrzvnBHcodk">collaborations</a>, the singer partnered with Canadian singer-songwriter Deborah Cox to deliver a story about how we can all overlook our partner’s red flags—even when they’re out in the open. Plus, Whitney and Deborah weren’t the only artists to contribute to the hit. The <a href="https://www.whosampled.com/sample/138683/Whitney-Houston-Deborah-Cox-Same-Script,-Different-Cast-Ludwig-Van-Beethoven-F%C3%BCr-Elise/">pair sampled Beethoven’s </a>“<a href="https://www.whosampled.com/sample/138683/Whitney-Houston-Deborah-Cox-Same-Script,-Different-Cast-Ludwig-Van-Beethoven-F%C3%BCr-Elise/">Für Elise”</a>, establishing themselves as the rare modern artists who can make a 200-year-old composition sound fresh.</p>

Same Script, Different Cast (2000)

In one of Whitney’s greatest collaborations , the singer partnered with Canadian singer-songwriter Deborah Cox to deliver a story about how we can all overlook our partner’s red flags—even when they’re out in the open. Plus, Whitney and Deborah weren’t the only artists to contribute to the hit. The pair sampled Beethoven’s “ Für Elise” , establishing themselves as the rare modern artists who can make a 200-year-old composition sound fresh.

Dear John Letter (2002)

With countless hits under her belt, it can be easy to forget that some of Whitney Houston’s strongest records were never released as singles at all. “Dear John Letter” is a prime example of this—although the track was never released to radio, the song is a great illustration of Whitney’s talent for hiding sad, reflective lyrics behind a poppy, fun melody.

<p>“I Will Always Love You” isn’t Whitney’s only hit from <em>The Bodyguard</em> soundtrack. With a breathtaking <a href="https://collider.com/most-popular-movie-soundtracks-of-all-time-ranked-by-total-sales/">45 million sales</a>, the entire soundtrack was a smash hit, spawning a number of ultra-successful singles including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxYw0XPEoKE">“I Have Nothing.”</a> The critically lauded song was up for some of the industry’s top awards, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103855/awards/?ref_=tt_awd">including</a> the Academy Award for Best Original Song.</p>

I Have Nothing (1993)

“I Will Always Love You” isn’t Whitney’s only hit from The Bodyguard soundtrack. With a breathtaking 45 million sales , the entire soundtrack was a smash hit, spawning a number of ultra-successful singles including “I Have Nothing.” The critically lauded song was up for some of the industry’s top awards, including the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

<p>Another excellent cover, this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WH1Ma50QUk">track</a> earned Whitney a Grammy nomination for her soaring <a href="https://genius.com/Whitney-houston-all-the-man-that-i-need-lyrics">vocal performance</a>. The hit song was released as the second single from her acclaimed third album <a href="https://www.riaa.com/gold-platinum/?tab_active=default-award&ar=Whitney+Houston&ti=I%27m+Your+Baby+Tonight&format=Album&type=#search_section"><em>I’m Your Baby Tonight</em></a><em>, </em>which ended up going platinum four times in the United States.</p>

All the Man That I Need (1990)

Another excellent cover, this track earned Whitney a Grammy nomination for her soaring vocal performance . The hit song was released as the second single from her acclaimed third album I’m Your Baby Tonight , which ended up going platinum four times in the United States.

<p>Another “deep cut” in her discography, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je3QDTxI9Gg">“Just the Lonely Talking Again”</a> is a song that was never formally released as a single, but serves as one of Whitney Houston’s finest records all the same. Wedged in an album that <a href="https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/102427-first-album-by-a-solo-female-to-debut-at-no-1-us">produced</a> an astonishing four No. 1 hits, the song remains an underrated and underappreciated gem in Whitney’s catalogue.</p>

Just the Lonely Talking Again (1987)

Another “deep cut” in her discography, “Just the Lonely Talking Again” is a song that was never formally released as a single, but serves as one of Whitney Houston’s finest records all the same. Wedged in an album that produced an astonishing four No. 1 hits, the song remains an underrated and underappreciated gem in Whitney’s catalogue.

<p>Whitney’s first official single to be released in the 21st century, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFVnVuTcz9I">“I Learned from the Best”</a> is a low-key track that lets Whitney’s gorgeous vocals take centre stage. <a href="https://genius.com/Whitney-houston-i-learned-from-the-best-lyrics">Written</a> by her frequent collaborator Diane Warren, the track is a quintessential Whitney ballad, which could never be a bad thing.</p>

I Learned from the Best (2000)

Whitney’s first official single to be released in the 21st century, “I Learned from the Best” is a low-key track that lets Whitney’s gorgeous vocals take centre stage. Written by her frequent collaborator Diane Warren, the track is a quintessential Whitney ballad, which could never be a bad thing.

<p>While the song was undeniably successful, it didn’t end up among Whitney’s <a href="https://books.google.ca/books?id=wwcEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA106&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false">high-charting singles</a>—but it still remains one of her best. With her signature stellar vocals, understated background instrumentals and lovelorn lyrics, <a href="https://www.whitneyhouston.com/en-ca/video/why-does-it-hurt-so-bad-mtv-movie-awards-1996/">“Why Does It Hurt So Bad”</a> absolutely nails the recipe for a perfect R&B ballad.</p>

Why Does It Hurt So Bad (1996)

While the song was undeniably successful, it didn’t end up among Whitney’s high-charting singles —but it still remains one of her best. With her signature stellar vocals, understated background instrumentals and lovelorn lyrics, “Why Does It Hurt So Bad” absolutely nails the recipe for a perfect R&B ballad.

<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7_sqdkaAfo">“I’m Every Woman”</a> will <em>always</em> be a <a href="https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/chaka-khan-isolated-vocals-im-every-woman/">Chaka Khan classic</a>, but Whitney’s own unique take on the track deserves its flowers as well. Recorded for <em>The Bodyguard</em>’s record-smashing soundtrack<em>, </em>the cover quickly garnered widespread praise, with some critics even <a href="https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-bodyguard-original-motion-picture-soundtrack-mw0000180918">hailing</a> it among her very best work.</p>

I’m Every Woman (1993)

“I’m Every Woman” will always be a Chaka Khan classic , but Whitney’s own unique take on the track deserves its flowers as well. Recorded for The Bodyguard ’s record-smashing soundtrack , the cover quickly garnered widespread praise, with some critics even hailing it among her very best work.

<p>A dance-pop hit for the secret optimist in all of us, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qghRdMpoVOE">“Love Will Save the Day”</a> is sure to offer a much-needed boost to anyone feeling down in the dumps. While plenty of Whitney Houston classics reflect on the loss of love, this song celebrates love, and <a href="https://genius.com/Whitney-houston-love-will-save-the-day-lyrics">reminds</a> us that attitude is everything.</p>

Love Will Save the Day (1988)

A dance-pop hit for the secret optimist in all of us, “Love Will Save the Day” is sure to offer a much-needed boost to anyone feeling down in the dumps. While plenty of Whitney Houston classics reflect on the loss of love, this song celebrates love, and reminds us that attitude is everything.

<p>Only a small handful of <a href="https://www.billboard.com/photos/billboard-hot-100-number-1-song-debuts-426225/">artists</a> have earned the prestigious honour of having a single <em>debut </em>at the top spot on the <em>Billboard</em> 100 chart. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrTuV4Szxzo">“Exhale (Shoop Shoop),”</a> a track from the <em>Waiting to Exhale </em>soundtrack, was the third single to ever debut atop the chart, a well-deserved accomplishment for such a prolific artist.</p>

Exhale (Shoop Shoop) (1995)

Only a small handful of artists have earned the prestigious honour of having a single debut at the top spot on the Billboard 100 chart. “Exhale (Shoop Shoop),” a track from the Waiting to Exhale soundtrack, was the third single to ever debut atop the chart, a well-deserved accomplishment for such a prolific artist.

<p>A far cry from “I will always love you,” <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J538b-OLRU">“It’s Not Right but It’s Okay”</a> is a self-empowerment anthem that reminds us we can always walk away from a situation that’s less than what we deserve. With an inescapably catchy chorus and <a href="https://genius.com/Whitney-houston-its-not-right-but-its-okay-lyrics">lyrics</a> describing the decision to nonchalantly leave a cheating lover, this better-off-without-you self-affirmation is one of the top contenders in Whitney’s entire discography.</p>

It’s Not Right but It’s Okay (1999)

A far cry from “I will always love you,” “It’s Not Right but It’s Okay” is a self-empowerment anthem that reminds us we can always walk away from a situation that’s less than what we deserve. With an inescapably catchy chorus and lyrics describing the decision to nonchalantly leave a cheating lover, this better-off-without-you self-affirmation is one of the top contenders in Whitney’s entire discography.

<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgsIGEm3f7w">“Celebrate”</a> is <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/sparkle-whitney-houston-jordin-sparks-soundtrack-celebrate-343969/">the last</a> recording from Whitney Houston, but the song’s merits stretch beyond its sentimental context. <a href="https://genius.com/Whitney-houston-and-jordin-sparks-celebrate-lyrics">Featuring</a> the then still up-and-coming singer Jordin Sparks, the song is sweet, fun, and demonstrated the impact that Whitney had on an entire generation of young artists. Without a doubt, the iconic songstress is still serving as an inspiration for artists, both emerging and established, around the world.</p>

Celebrate (2012)

“Celebrate” is the last recording from Whitney Houston, but the song’s merits stretch beyond its sentimental context. Featuring the then still up-and-coming singer Jordin Sparks, the song is sweet, fun, and demonstrated the impact that Whitney had on an entire generation of young artists. Without a doubt, the iconic songstress is still serving as an inspiration for artists, both emerging and established, around the world.

<p>This song went to No. 1 in 14 countries and won the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30th_Annual_Grammy_Awards#Pop" rel="noreferrer noopener">Grammy Award for the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1988.</a></p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eH3giaIzONA" rel="noreferrer noopener">Listen to the song on YouTube</a> </p>

I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) (1987)

It wouldn’t be right to mention Whitney Houston’s greatest hits without “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me).” One of the singer’s most immediately recognizable hits, the song tore up the charts upon its first release, and even re-entered the top 40 following her tragic death in 2012, serving as the perfect reminder that her musical impact and legacy live on.

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'Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody' Review: Her Lonely Heart
Dec. 22, 2022. Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody. Directed by Kasi Lemmons. Biography, Drama, Music. PG-13. 2h 26m. Find Tickets. When you purchase a ticket for an independently ...
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody
Feb 13, 2024 Full Review Nadine Whitney Mr. Movie's Film Blog I Wanna Dance with Somebody is a disservice to the memory of Whitney Houston. Make a playlist, watch videos, dance to her music. Make ...
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody
About 25 minutes into "Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody," an inarticulate, slapdash musical biopic about the famed songstress, the film reaches its high point: Arista Records head Clive Davis (Stanley Tucci) enters the nightclub where Houston (Naomi Ackie) and her gospel legend mother Cissy Houston (Tamara Tunie) are performing.When the latter sees the A&R man taking his seat, she ...
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody
Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Feb 3, 2023. Maurice Tracy Metro Times (Detroit, MI) As good as Ackie was, the final moments of the film for anyone who has seen the 1994 American Music Awards ...
'I Wanna Dance With Somebody' Review: Whitney Houston Biopic Sings
Clive Davis ( Stanley Tucci) and Whitney Houston (Naomi Ackie) in 'Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody' Emily Aragones/Sony Pictures. And Ackie helps sell Houston as a singular talent ...
Review: 'Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody'
But of the non-docs, at least, Kasi Lemmons ' Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody— starring English actress Naomi Ackie—may come closest to capturing Houston's exuberant ...
'Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody' Review: A Lavish, All
"I Wanna Dance With Somebody," which tells the exultant and tragic story of Whitney Houston, feels different. Houston's first album was released in 1985, and maybe because her triumphs and ...
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022)
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody: Directed by Kasi Lemmons. With Naomi Ackie, Stanley Tucci, Ashton Sanders, Tamara Tunie. A joyous, emotional, heartbreaking celebration of the life and music of Whitney Houston, one of the greatest female R&B pop vocalists of all time, tracking her journey from obscurity to musical super stardom.
'Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody' Review: Naomi Ackie
Among the many winning qualities of Kasi Lemmons ' Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody is that unlike most musical biopics, which tend to hurtle through frustrating fragments of the ...
I Wanna Dance With Somebody review
It does however deliver the big scenes and big moments, especially her amazing performance of the national anthem at the 1991 Super Bowl. But a boilerplate music biopic like this usually runs in ...
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody Movie Review
What you will—and won't—find in this movie. Parents need to know that I Wanna Dance with Somebody is a biopic about the life and career of Whitney Houston (Naomi Ackie), the talented singer who in the 1980s and 1990s had more hit singles than the Beatles. Most viewers will know going in that Houston died in 2012 at age 48.
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody
Dec 29, 2022. The movie isn't a melodramatic tell-all, or a total downer. But it manages, even while being unapologetically entertaining, to feel like an honest reckoning with all the things we didn't want to know about Houston at her fame's height. It's a film that takes our failings into consideration, rather than simply fixating on ...
I Wanna Dance with Somebody Review: A Basic Whitney Houston Biopic
A music biopic so broad and hacky it makes "Jersey Boys" seem like "All that Jazz," Kasi Lemmons ' well-acted but laughably trite " Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody " is ...
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody Review
The film's tendency to rush off to the next moment creates a tonal whiplash between scenes. It's Ackie's impactful performance that elevates this film; her epic, textured performance is what you ...
Review: 'Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody' is a well-acted
"Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody" — 3 stars (out of 4) MPA rating: PG-13 (for strong drug content, some strong language, smoking and suggestive references) Running time: 2:26
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022)
My Review - I Wanna Dance with Somebody My Rating 8/10 If you haven't heard of Whitney Houston known as "The Voice" and I doubt anyone who listens to a radio hasn't please don't read further as my review this time contains a spoiler or two. ... I Wanna Dance: The Whitney Houston Movie is a new biography about the late pop star Whitney Houston ...
'I Wanna Dance' review: Biopic won't let Whitney Houston rest
'Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody' is directed by Kasi Lemmons and stars Naomi Ackie, but writer-producer Anthony McCarten's story choices are a slog.
Movie review: 'Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody'
December 21, 2022. 1. "Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody," which hits theaters Friday, is perhaps the purest definition of the big-screen jukebox musical. Watching the film, you get ...
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody Review
Published Dec 22, 2022. For a biopic, I Wanna Dance with Somebody follows the norms of the genre but allows Naomi Ackie to deliver a sensational performance in the process. Naomie Ackie in I Wanna Dance With Somebody. Nearly 11 years ago, global sensation and renowned superstar Whitney E. Houston shocked the world with her untimely death.
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody Review
In the case of Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody (hastily re-titled to add the singer's name earlier this month) when a director as capable as Kasi Lemmons gets sucked into the ...
I Wanna Dance With Somebody review
G iven the movie-friendly trajectory of Whitney Houston's life and career (stellar rise; glittering success; tragic fall: check!), the main surprise is that it took as long as it did for her to ...
Whitney Houston biopic movie "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" in an
Published 12:29 PM PDT, December 22, 2022. Whitney Houston's voice was one of a kind and the creative team behind a new big-budget biopic of the singer had no choice but to agree. Naomi Ackie, who plays Houston in "I Wanna Dance With Somebody," turns in a fierce performance but is asked to lip-sync throughout to Houston biggest hits.
Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody Parent Guide
Ms. Lemmons is somewhat less successful in helping us understand Whitney Houston's inner life. For an overlong film, I Wanna Dance With Somebody feels rushed, with some important issues being short-changed.Houston's lesbian relationship with Robyn Crawford (Nafessa Williams) starts believably but evolves into a platonic friendship with only minimal discussion.
'I Wanna Dance with Somebody' review: Whitney Houston movie falls flat
Fact checking 'I Wanna Dance With Somebody,' the new Whitney Houston movie. "Somebody" is way too long at two hours and 26 minutes - almost every movie is guilty of that particular sin right ...
MIH: 'Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody' Exclusive
Dec 22, 2022 - Made in Hollywood speaks exclusively with Naomi Ackie, Nafessa Williams, and director Kasi Lemmons about their new movie, the challenges of bringing Whitney Houston's story to the ...
"I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" was released on this day
"I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" was released on this day in 1987 May 02, 2024. Whitney's "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)" was released on this day in 1987. The timeless hit continues to unite and uplift — bringing everyone to the dance floor! ... Movies & TV; Videos; Photos; About. Biography; Timeline; Awards;
I Will Always Love You: Whitney Houston's greatest songs
Without question, Whitney Houston was the queen of the movie soundtrack. On top of The Bodyguard, ... I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) (1987)
Whitney Houston
[Verse 2] I've been in love and lost to my senses Spinnin' through the town Sooner or later, the fever ends And I wind up feelin' down [Pre-Chorus] I need a man who'll take a chance On a love that ...
Whitney Houston I Wanna Dance With Somebody Drawstring Bag
Introducing the Whitney Houston I Wanna Dance with Somebody Drawstring Bag, a chic and versatile accessory that embodies the spirit of one of music's most beloved songs. Crafted with durable materials and adorned with a vibrant design inspired by Whitney Houston's iconic hit, this drawstring bag is the perfect blend of style and functionality.

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Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody Reviews

‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’ Comes to Praise Whitney Houston, Not to Bury Her

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Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody Captures Both the Tragedy and Glory of the Superstar

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‘Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ Review: A Lavish, All-Stops-Out Biopic That Channels Her Glory and Gets Her Story Right

Owen Gleiberman

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Reviewed at Sony Screening Room, Nov. 30, 2022. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 146 MIN.

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