As busy I get from time to time, I find that I can't see every movie under the sun, leaving my friends and colleagues to fill in the blanks for me. As poetically as I think I wax about movies on this website as a wannabe critic, there are other experts out there. Sometimes, it inspires me to see the movie too and get back to being my circle's go-to movie guy. Sometimes, they save me $9 and you 800+ words of blathering. In a new review series, I'm opening my site to friend submissions for guest movie reviews.
TODAY’S CRITIC: Lafronda Stumn
Lafronda Stumn is a student at Madisonville Community College and intends to graduate with an Associate's degree in Associate of the Arts. She plans on earning a Bachelors Degree in Motion Picture Studies and English at Wright State University. Her favorite Directors are Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Spike Lee, and her favorite actors are Al Pacino, Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, and Halle Berry. Lafronda contacted this page looking for a place to get published and I enjoy giving people that very kind of opportunity. This is her 30th guest review for Every Movie Has a Lesson. Welcome as always, Lafronda!
HER REVIEW: The United States vs. Billie Holiday
Lee Daniels’ career as a director is very solid. Precious directed by Daniels is brilliant in depiction of abuse and illness through the eyes of a teenager, and her atrocious mother played memorably by Monique. The Bulter is an underrated film that cast Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey as parents to a young man who rebels against his father, who is the butler of several U.S. presidents from Truman to Reagan, to become an activist for civil rights for African Americans.
Luckily, his newest film, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, is about the great jazz singer, Billie Holiday as a woman who fought to sing a song called “Strange Fruit” about the devastation of lynching in the south in the 1940s and 1950s. It did not thrill the FBI who constantly tried to get her to stop singing the song by arresting her many times for drug possession. Holiday had an addiction to heroin, which caused many health and financial problems.
The film’s star Andra Day, who makes an outstanding film debut with a performance on a par with Diana Ross’s performance in the 1972 film Lady Sings the Blues. Her love interest is also the person and FBI informant who comes into her world because he believes drugs are destroying the black community and wanted to do all he can to stop it.
A few standout scenes are when Holiday cries at the funeral of her dog and her friends come to console her. Besides, when Fletcher, the FBI informant, testifies against her in court for drug possession, it ends in disaster. There is a flashback in which Holiday’s mother, a hooker, tells her daughter to leave the brothel she was raised in to become a hooker like her mother. Holiday doesn’t want to do that, and there is a battle of wills between them.
Overall, Holiday receives a standing ovation at Carnegie Hall for the show-stopping song, “Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do.” Despite this, she still can’t get a cabaret card because of her time in prison. Unfortunately, there is a sad scene where it looks like she has painful sex with her soon-to-be no-good future husband while Lady Day sings on stage. During a bus stop on tour, Holiday sees a burning cross of a black woman hanged and a child crying for her mommy.
The movie runs slowly. I kept checking my watch to see when the film would end. Despite this, the film is well worth seeing because of Day’s dazzling performance. Her brilliance is in the nuance of Day’s mannerisms. She nailed Holiday’s singing style with great conviction and the purpose of Day’s raw intensity. It is a marvelous display of what movie acting is and should be.
In addition, Trevante Rhodes plays Jimmy Fletcher, the informant who falls in love with Lady Day. He gives a subtle and powerful performance. Garrett Hedlund is smarmy and evil as the FBI man who will stop at nothing to destroy Holiday’s career. Hedlund’s character cares more about her not singing the anti-lynching song than arresting her for heroin possession. Davine Joy Randolph is a pleasure to watch as the loyal best friend of Day’s character.
Also, the costumes and production design of Paolo Nieddu and Daniel Dorrance do a beautiful job of the look of expensive costumes and high-quality sets to back Day as a star of the highest order. There are many songs that Day does justice to the voice and songs of Holiday, especially towards the end of the movie with “God Bless the Child.”
RATING: ***
CONCLUSION
Thank you again, Lafronda! You are welcome anytime. Friends, if you see a movie that I don't see and want to be featured on my website, hit up my website's Facebook page and you can be my next GUEST CRITIC!
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