I Wanna Love This Movie, But I Can't

Director: Kasi Lemmons
Her 6th movie
My 4th movie watched from the director

This movie was kind of a mess. Lemmons' most recent work, "Harriet" was her best, so I thought she was about to really hit her stride here. Instead it looks like it's made by a novice filmmaker. There are too many little things that screwed it up, but the most notable ones were the rough character arcs and relationships that didn't make any sense, especially the lesbian relationship that begins the piece giving us viewer the idea that "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" might be about her in love with a woman but then never truly being able to love her because of fill-in-the-blank. Instead the movie's title is irrelevant, only named after one of her popular songs. The movie also made her very unlikable and turned her death from sad to "she had it coming, I guess" which is terrible. Then the movie ends on a scene that's trying to be powerful like the ending of another music biopic, "Bohemian Rhapsody", except the poor filmmaking just leaves us viewer confused as to why we needed to sit through that melody.
I really "wanna" love this movie, but can't.

Added to Lists:

The Music Biopic: Ranked
Top Ten Performances: Stanley Tucci (Honorable Mention)

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Location: New York, NY, USA; Los Angeles, CA, USA