Whitney Houston Biopic- Lukewarm at Best

Bobby Brown is an award winning singer.

Bobby Brown is a great dancer.

Bobby Brown doesn’t take anyone’s flak (even Whitney Houston).

Bobby Brown is a caring person.

Bobby Brown is fantastic in bed.

Bobby Brown is a good father.

Bobby Brown is a nice person.

Bobby Brown did not support his ex-wife’s drug use.

Bobby Brown is INNOCENT.

Clive Davis is EVIL.

Bobby Brown is fantastic in bed.

Bobby Brown did all he could to heal his childhood trauma and get off drugs.

Bobby Brown is fantastic in bed.

Bobby Brown is fantastic in bed.

Bobby Brown is fantastic in bed.

Beyond being a testimonial to all the good that is in Bobby Brown and how he tried to help Whitney, this movie is actually one of the least interesting tv movies I've ever seen.

In stark contrast to the Aaliyah biopic, there is nothing memorable about this movie. It is a vanilla perspective on one of the most interesting and tumultuous “odd couples” in Hollywood history.

Prominently featured is Bobby Brown, as essentially a good boy in a bad man’s body, endorsed by none other than the king of sensitivity, Babyface.

I almost suspect that Lifetime went out of its way to make this production as inoffensive as possible, while squeezing out every bit of heart this story could have had. With the exception of numerous raunchy sex scenes that I could have done without.

Whitney’s family is shown as an overbearing mob, suffocating her personally and emotionally out of “love”. Distressed by her engagement, they do everything they can to discourage the marriage. A scene between Bobby and Whitney suggests that they are both overburdened from having to care for their families financial needs. Mostly everyone wears gold crosses like some talisman as they seem to jockey for control. The scenes with Clive Davis are typical of what one expects from a music executive who is losing a substantial client. However, his confrontation with Bobby Brown was strangely placid, like a rich grandfather forced to discipline a disobedient grandchild- the age difference between them is as deliberately gaping as possible.

The one interesting camera move is the close-up of Bobby’s vengeful face in the nightclub, glaring at Whitney as she dances the night away, oblivious to his presence.

There are far too many lengthy singing interludes that add nothing to the story. We KNOW that Whitney Houston can sing. While Deborah Cox does a good job covering Whitney, there was simply no need for that much singing. This was not a musical.

If this was supposed to be a fairy tale gone wrong then yes, it did.  The hero and wronged party in this story is Bobby. The evil queen is Whitney, surrounded by her minions embodied in the form of her best friend/manager and her bourgeois family members. There is no happily ever after. There is not even a happy anything, since the movie ends on as sad a tone as it can manage. Alone on stage, Whitney sadly sings “I Will Always Love You” while Bobby, alone offstage, unhappily watches her.

It suggests doom to come and we all know that it does twofold, when the marriage ended 15 years later and Whitney’s untimely demise in 2012.

For some reason, Whitney didn’t want to stop taking drugs, as one of the final scenes suggests, showing her bedroom drawer practically overflowing with cocaine. But we don’t know why.

So the controversial production turned out to be a timid reenactment of a marriage gone wrong. A couple of alcohol or drug induced fights not between junkies, but between two talented people, hoping for love and finding only empty disappointment, as will the audience who watches this film.