The Real Michael Jackson review: This documentary fails to bring anything fresh to the table

Michael Jackson has been a life-long obsession for investigative journalist and documentarian Jacques Peretti. And like many Jackson devotees, Peretti has had to grapple with fandom’s version of the five stages of grief before finally accepting Jackson’s interest in young boys was inappropriate at best, predatory and criminal at worst.

So it’s a pity The Real Michael Jackson (BBC2) doesn’t have more of Peretti confronting his relationship as a fan with the singer. There is some of that but not enough. Instead, the 90-minute film delivers a gripping but essentially familiar potted history of the rise and fall of a moonwalking icon.

The promise is that Peretti will paint “a fuller picture of this complex, contradictory character by exploring the clues that were missed”. He does delve into Jackson’s childhood and adolescence but there are few bombshells.

That isn’t to say The Real Michael Jackson isn’t watchable. With no end in sight to the coronavirus crisis, it comes as a huge relief to be able to lose yourself for an hour and a half in a subject completely unrelated to Covid-19, PPE gear or continuous coughing. Yet in terms of adding to our understanding of Jackson and his inner life, it is unclear if The Real Michael Jackson brings anything fresh to the table.

Incredibly, it’s the fourth documentary Peretti has made about the singer. The obvious new context is the detailed account of sexual misconduct by Jackson made by abuse survivors Wade Robson and James Safechuck in last year’s Leaving Neverland documentary.

Yet Leaving Neverland is only reckoned with at the very end, when Peretti confesses his regret to having devoted so much of his career to the pop star and to becoming dazzled by the “circus” around Jackson. Until that moment, The Real Michael Jackson feels like a “best of” of the artist’s misdemeanours. If you have even a passing knowledge of the story, much of it will be dishearteningly familiar. It’s like slapping on “Thriller” for the 500th time. You know which “hit” is coming next.

Peretti, for instance, revisits the infamous 1993 World Music Awards in Monaco. We see Prince Albert trying not to flinch as Jackson, sat next to him, grooves to a Boyz II Men performance with 12-year-old Jordan Chandler on his lap.

This follows the inevitable deep dive into Jackson’s formative years. Donny Osmond, of the Osmonds, explains that, having become famous as a boy, Jackson was painfully aware of his lost childhood. But another friend, J Randy Taraborrelli, feels that though Jackson banged on endlessly about his stolen youth, what he really mourned was the inevitability of growing up.

Jackson’s violent, authoritarian father Joe is wheeled out as a baleful influence. However, Taraborrelli challenges the idea that Jackson lived in permanent terror of Joe.

As Jackson’s talent grew, so did his clout. Joe finally had to learn to know his place. If Michael took anything from his father, says Taraborrelli, it was his streak of ruthlessness. “Michael could be very cutthroat as he was becoming a superstar.”

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Jackson’s plunge into notoriety is one of pop’s great morality plays. But it is one that has been rehashed endlessly. And despite testimonies by Beyoncé’s father and former manager Mathew Knowles (offering vague statements about fame) and Ron Zonen, who unsuccessfully led the prosecution against Jackson in his 2005 sexual abuse trial, Peretti does little to further our sense of the man behind the music industry machine.

The only occasion when The Real Michael Jackson threatens to be something beyond join-the-dots rockumentary is when Peretti looks back at an old interview in which he confronts Jackson’s PR manager, Bob Jones. Recalling Monaco and the days Jackson and Jordan Chandler spent in a bedroom together (allegedly they were unwell), Jones dangles before Peretti the possibility that he is going to out his former boss as an abuser. But it’s just a tease and Jones (who died in 2008) ultimately demurs.

“‘Is he a paedophile?’ is the question that should be asked… And I don’t ask the question. That is a failure,” says Peretti. It’s a moment of doubt and self-questioning rare in this kind of documentary. The Real Michael Jackson could have done with a lot more of the same.