Directed by Lee Daniels
Starring Andra Day, Trevante Rhodes, Garrett Hedlund and Rob Morgan

Many of you would be more than familiar who Billie Holiday is, but you may not have heard of the actress portraying her on-screen in this music biopic. Or at least not until her recent and surprising Golden Globe victory! Andra Day, born Cassandra Monique Batie, is a Grammy award nominated singer and songwriter who’s starring in her first acting role in The United States vs. Billie Holiday, which has earned her an Oscar nomination. In a rather uncanny resemblance of history repeating, Diana Ross’s first acting role was portraying Billie Holiday in the 1972 film Lady Sings the Blues, which also earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role!

Many of you would be more than familiar with the tragedies that struck and truncated the life of legendary jazz and swing music singer Billie Holiday. As it turns out, tragedy is the absolute and broad focus of The United States vs. Billie Holiday, which covers her dependency on drugs, volatile and abusive relationships and the controversy and persecution she faced each time she attempts to perform a song based on a poem about lynching titled ‘Strange Fruit’. Unfortunately and according to an article I read, the script omits Billie Holiday’s artistic spark and her sense of humour, which are sorely needed here. These pivotal characteristics of Billie would’ve provided viewers a more holistic portrait of the artist and person and also counterbalanced the sheer heaviness of the film. I’m not going to lie, The United States vs. Billie Holiday is a tough slog.

Another terrible tragedy of significant importance in the life of Billie Holiday this film doesn’t omit, but doesn’t delve into anywhere near as much as it needed to considering the emphasis there is on her drug addiction, is her childhood and the horror that befell her at age 10. As if her life wasn’t already bleak enough, I discovered that one of the films central and most upsetting plots is largely made-up. This involves an agent from the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (played by Trevante Rhodes) assigned to the case of Billie Holiday by his racist and white superior (played by Garrett Hedlund) who claims that jazz music is the devil’s work and treats ‘Strange Fruit’ as though it were the antichrist itself.

So all in all, I’m disappointed by this screenplay and also by the film’s inconsistent rendering. There are several moments throughout of mesmerising brilliance, where every facet of the film works in perfect and powerful harmony with Andra Day’s fully-embodied performance front and centre. But they are often short-lived moments followed by lengthier lulls where the story struggles to even be engaging. Or perhaps this is simply consequential of placing all motivation and emphasis in the same weighty basket.

The United States vs. Billie Holiday is showing in cinemas across Australia from April 15.


Moviedoc thanks Universal Pictures for the invitation to the screening of this film.

Review by Leigh for Moviedoc

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