Movie Review: Whitney

Review Written by Michael J. Ruhland

















Michael's Movie Grade: B+

Review: Involving and often heartbreaking documentary gets its power from the pure emotion of those being interviewed.

This film shows a very human portrayal of Whitney Houston. In this movie she is shown as a woman who instead of facing her troubles chose to run away from them and instead into a path of self destruction. What makes this feel so personal and powerful is the interviews with those who knew her. This is in what has become the standard format for documentaries and features clips between various people being interviewed. While this is seen in many documentaries today, it works extremely well here. The reason for this is the people being interviewed are often overcome by pure emotion when talking about Whitney Houston. You can tell how deeply they wished they could have helped her, but didn't always know how. When the documentary turns to her last days, it becomes difficult to watch because you can see the pain on her family and friends faces. However this movie isn't completely about her tragic drug addiction. There is of course a lot about her music and film career. These scenes are fascinating and give great insight into a great career. We learn how she got her start, how her music affected people so powerfully and how she became one of the most popular stars of her generation. However this is also the only place where the movie truly falters. Not that these scenes aren't excellent, which they are, but the fact that sometimes this information is so intricately detailed and other times very vague. Her early career is very well chronicled here, but as the film goes on it becomes much more about her personal demons and less about music and film, with a couple of exceptions. Still this movie is more than good enough to make up for this. This is an excellent film and I certainty recommend it to documentary fans.      


-Michael J. Ruhland