Dee Rees’ Bessie uses the modern biopic format in the best way I’ve ever seen it used as it’s filled to the brim with happiness and soul brought to life with a genuinely good script (which I find to be pretty rare for these), and with the music and production design being as beautiful as they were and the emotion hitting as hard as I could want I’m happy to say this is my new favorite music biopic, at least until I catch Amadeus. Clearly a shining part of this movie is the cast with Queen Latifah bringing an incredible electricity to the lead and giving what’s easily the best performance I’ve seen her give, I also really liked Mo’Nique as Ma Rainey in the first half and Khandi Alexander was good in the second. Unfortunately with all the greatness here there are a few things holding it back and it’s mostly the generic biopic clichés that always come with these, Michael Kenneth Williams plays the husband version of the under-focused biopic wife and the progression of the story feels inauthentic with how I’ve seen it plenty of times before. Another issue I have with this form of biopic is how the supporting characters are handled, obviously there’s not much to be done considering you’re focusing on one person’s life and if that person isn’t in our main character’s life anymore their character can’t be in the movie anymore, it leaves you wanting more than the glancing looks you got into those characters on the journey of your biopic’s subject. That problem hits hardest here with Mo’Nique who brought so much power and energy to the first half and was sorely missed in the second despite her still showing up here and there, not even just in the music scenes but her actual acting was great and the back and forths with Queen Latifah were so entertaining and made for some of the best moments in the film, it’s more of a flaw with the biopic as a genre and less with this specifically although it does still hinder my experience here. Dee Rees really intrigues me as an auteur with her writing and directing this and having it come out this well despite how easy it could’ve been to make it mediocre, she’s done a few other films that look great to me as well and I’m more than excited to check those out after this. I could really see myself revisiting this someday which is something I’ve never said about one of these, there’s a lot here that’s genuinely fantastic and provides some of my new favorite moments of the 2010s but sadly there are also shortcomings that keep it from a higher rating for me. Definitely check it out though!
Dee Rees’ Bessie uses the modern biopic format in the best way I’ve ever seen it used as it’s filled to the brim with happiness and soul brought to life with a genuinely good script (which I find to be pretty rare for these), and with the music and production design being as beautiful as they were and the emotion hitting as hard as I could want I’m happy to say this is my new favorite music biopic, at least until I catch Amadeus. Clearly a shining part of this movie is the cast with Queen Latifah bringing an incredible electricity to the lead and giving what’s easily the best performance I’ve seen her give, I also really liked Mo’Nique as Ma Rainey in the first half and Khandi Alexander was good in the second. Unfortunately with all the greatness here there are a few things holding it back and it’s mostly the generic biopic clichés that always come with these, Michael Kenneth Williams plays the husband version of the under-focused biopic wife and the progression of the story feels inauthentic with how I’ve seen it plenty of times before. Another issue I have with this form of biopic is how the supporting characters are handled, obviously there’s not much to be done considering you’re focusing on one person’s life and if that person isn’t in our main character’s life anymore their character can’t be in the movie anymore, it leaves you wanting more than the glancing looks you got into those characters on the journey of your biopic’s subject. That problem hits hardest here with Mo’Nique who brought so much power and energy to the first half and was sorely missed in the second despite her still showing up here and there, not even just in the music scenes but her actual acting was great and the back and forths with Queen Latifah were so entertaining and made for some of the best moments in the film, it’s more of a flaw with the biopic as a genre and less with this specifically although it does still hinder my experience here. Dee Rees really intrigues me as an auteur with her writing and directing this and having it come out this well despite how easy it could’ve been to make it mediocre, she’s done a few other films that look great to me as well and I’m more than excited to check those out after this. I could really see myself revisiting this someday which is something I’ve never said about one of these, there’s a lot here that’s genuinely fantastic and provides some of my new favorite moments of the 2010s but sadly there are also shortcomings that keep it from a higher rating for me. Definitely check it out though!
