Whitney review: A disconcerting film to watch, joyous and grim by turns

Dir Kevin Macdonald, 120 mins, featuring: Whitney Houston, Bobby Brown, Bobbi Kristina Brown, Cissy Houston

Only a year or so after Nick Broomfield’s excellent Whitney Houston documentary comes another equally impressive film about the singer from a British director. Kevin Macdonald’s Whitney was made with the cooperation of the subject’s family and features interviews with her brothers, mother, former husband Bobby Brown and many other close associates.

The one key figure Macdonald hasn’t reached, and who didn’t speak to Broomfield either, is Houston’s friend, assistant and alleged lesbian lover, Robyn Crawford. (She appears here but only in archive footage.)

This is a disconcerting film to watch, joyous and grim by turns. For all the controversy and din created by the revelation that Houston (and her brothers) had been sexually abused as children by a close relative, the film can’t explain why Houston’s life took the tragic turn it did.

The contrast between the singer as a young star, hard-working, liked by everyone and with an astonishing voice, and the wreck she became before her untimely death, is as perplexing as ever. She is as mysterious at the end of the film as at the beginning.

Macdonald reminds us of the raw voltage of her performances when she was in her prime. For British viewers, it is hard to appreciate the impact of her rendition of the Star Spangled Banner at the 1991 Super Bowl. Kevin Costner is on hand to talk about The Bodyguard (considered groundbreaking for its interracial romance). The director also shows us how revered Houston was in post-apartheid South Africa. Nelson Mandela was a fervent fan.

Houston had been teased at school for being too white and later attacked in certain quarters for drifting too far towards the white pop mainstream. Contradictions abound. She was both a role model and a victim. Former collaborators talk about her consummate professionalism while others share stories about her erratic behaviour and hedonistic excesses.

Her relationship with her family was both her source of strength and one of the most destructive factors in her life. She bankrolled huge numbers of her relatives but still ended up being sued by her father. Her daughter’s story was even sadder her than her own.

As a young singer, Houston copied her mother but very quickly transcended her. As her mother tells the filmmaker, there are three places to sing from, “heart, mind, guts – and she learned them all”.

Macdonald’s approach is conventional. This is a documentary full of talking heads. It is also very well researched and full of revealing archive material. The director asks all the questions you would expect but doesn’t always get the answers he is hoping for. Bobby Brown simply stonewalls when the director tries to discuss the couple’s drug taking.

Her brothers, who seem like very troubled souls themselves, point out “you don’t resolve things if you don’t deal with things… they never go away”. As the documentary makes clear, this was certainly true for Whitney. The demons in her past wouldn’t let her be.

Whitney hits UK cinemas 6 July.