Whitney: Can I Be Me, film review – How this brilliant star lived, loved and lost

Nick Broomfield’s new documentary is fascinated by the way racism and religion render certain individuals beyond the pale
Fallen star: Whitney Houston, who died at the age of 48 in 2012
Redferns
Charlotte O'Sullivan17 November 2017

In Nick Broomfield’s new documentary Whitney Houston is asked how she wants to be remembered. The gorgeous, ridiculously successful singer/model/actress flashes her big, slick smile, murmurs a few sweet nothings, then says, “I don’t want to go down for being a hag.” In the last years of her life, Houston often looked as wild as a witch. What made her fairytale life implode?

Broomfield’s thesis is that Houston could, and should, have had a happy ending with Robyn Crawford, the schoolfriend who morphed into her right-hand woman and was almost certainly her long-term lover. Instead, Houston bought into the idea that every princess needs a prince. In this case, rapper Bobby Brown who, as footage from Houston’s 1999 world tour shows, was an über prat.

When Broomfield loves his subjects (Biggie Smalls’ mum, Voletta Wallace; serial killer, Aileen Wuornos) he creates magic. You can tell he’s smitten with Crawford. In sequences shot by showbiz veteran Rudi Dolezal (who gets a co-directing credit) Crawford flirts with Houston (in a cheekily intimate sort of way) and visibly recoils when Brown approaches. It’s a shame Broomfield couldn’t get an interview with this smart cookie. Still, you feel like you know her.

In 2014, Broomfield made Tales of the Grim Sleeper, a sublime documentary about a series of gruesome crimes that were ignored by the LA police because the victims were black, crack-addicted, prostitutes. An extra layer of horror (according to Broomfield) was that the killer’s black, church-going wife knew about the murders but deliberately turned a blind eye.

Can I Be Me, similarly, is fascinated by the way racism and religion render certain individuals beyond the pale. Houston’s dishevelled older brothers (raised in one of the roughest parts of Newark) explain how they began using heroin before they were even teens.

Meanwhile, their mother Cissy (who has since distanced herself from the film) comes across as a controlling zealot. You get the sense of a woman battling so hard to impress white America that her moral compass has gone haywire.

Like Asif Kapadia’s Amy, Can I Be Me is not an “official” portrait. Again, like Amy, it contains great songs. Houston, singing an R&B song to Jesus, lets go of the glitz and makes the heavens explode.

Obviously, Kevin Macdonald’s upcoming Houston documentary (endorsed by Cissy), will offer a more complete picture. But my guess is that Broomfield’s downbeat chronicle, obsessed with love, loss and betrayal, will be the one which endures.

Cert 15, 105 mins

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