OSCARS 2021: The United States Vs. Billie Holiday (2021)

In 2009, Lee Daniels would direct “Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire.” Hilarious subtitle aside, the film was met with critical praise. It earned multiple Oscar nominations, ultimately winning two. Afterwards, Daniels would direct “The Paperboy,” a follow-up so pulpy and miscalculated that it caused some people to reevaluated what they liked about the director's previous movie. Daniels would only reign in his love of melodrama somewhat with “The Butler” and would eventually find a profitable home with a prime time soap opera. Clearly still eager for Oscar gold, Daniels has tried again with is fifth feature, “The United States Vs. Billie Holiday.” The biopic would earn largely middling reviews but still managed to wrangle an Oscar nomination for star Andra Day. 

In 1939, already a hit maker for songs like “All of Me,” Billie Holiday started to sing “Strange Fruit” at concerts and clubs. The song, a frank recollection of a lynching, makes Holiday the target of scorn by the FBI. By this point Holiday was already a heroin addict. A man named Jimmy Fletcher befriends Holiday before revealing himself to be an undercover agent. Holiday goes to jail for a year because of possession. Afterwards, she launches a successful comeback tour. Yet Holiday is pursued for the rest of her life by the government, her addictions, and her tumultuous relationships with men, including Fletcher. 

Most of the discussion around “The United States Vs. Billie Holiday” has centered on Andra Day's performance. She's good! You can always argue about what constitutes a good performance, when it comes to biopics like this. Do you value copying the real person's mannerisms and appearance or getting at the heart and soul of the subject? Day definitely does a pitch-perfect impersonation of Holiday's distinctive vocal patterns. She does all her own singing and it's a pretty uncanny recreation. Day also manages to maintain a sense of dignity, even during the character's most desperate moments.  

Ultimately, a strong lead performance can only go so far to redeem the entire enterprise. “The United States Vs. Billie Holiday” is unquestionably a melodramatic take on the material. Holiday's drug addiction is depicted in a pretty over-the-top fashion. She's often reduced to babbling in a doped-up haze. The most embarrassing moment occurs during an explicit sex scene, where Holiday demands that Fletcher mount her from behind... But he insists on making love face-to-face. Cause, see, he respects her as a person. The tear-strewn break-up that follows shortly afterwards is similarly overheated. There's a lot of moments in Daniels' film that feel that way, uncomfortably perched between exploitative and striving to be taken seriously. 

This overheated touch is most obvious in Daniels' treatment of the film's racial elements. A scene where FBI agents detail why they hate “Strange Fruit” and consider Holiday a threat to American stability are sledge hammer obvious. Moments like Holiday being dragged off-stage after singing the opening line of “Strange Fruit” or the final image that close the film are similarly overwrought. The only time Daniels comes close to making an impact is during a drug-induced vision, when Holiday sees a burning church and a dead body hanging in a tree. Yet this points towards another problem with the film: Daniels' visual approach is also ham-fisted. Kaleidoscoping images or black-and-white newsreel intrude often, drawing way too much attention to themselves. 

“The United States Vs. Billie Holiday” runs two hours and ten minutes long. This wouldn't be a problem if the movie didn't resign itself to repetition about half-way through. Holiday tries to shake her drug addiction but always relapses. She tries to stand up for racial justice but is always silenced by the government forces persecuting her. She tries to find satisfying romantic relationships but the men in her life usually mistreat and beat her. No further insight is gleamed by repeating these misfortunes over and over again. Eventually, the film just becomes a miserable slog. 

Ultimately, “The United States Vs. Billie Holiday” is exactly what I expected. It's got a pretty good lead performance, or at least one that is technically impressive. Daniels, meanwhile, directs and composes the story with all the subtly of a sledgehammer. There's not much insight into Holiday's status as an icon, what she did for civil rights, or her struggles as an addict. It's a very superficial treatment of a real person and the real problems they encounter. It also doesn't do anything that “Lady Sings the Blues” didn't do better, making me wonder why the movie exists at all. [5/10]