The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021) User Reviews

The 5 Stars are ONLY for Andra Day's Performance

[syd9907 · 5/10 · 27 February 2021]

I watched "The United States vs Billie Holiday" on Hulu, and this film literally left me drained. Andra Day nails her portrayal of Billie Holiday. She is sensational. But this film showcases what happens when a great performance ends up in an absolutely awful film.

The only time The United States vs Billie Holiday comes to life is when Andra Day is on-screen. She took trite dialogue and made it magic. And her version of Billie Holiday's songs were powerful, but when she sang "Strange Fruit", it gave me chills.

This biopic about the last years in Holiday's life, and how the authorities pursued and harassed her just because she refused to stop singing "Strange Fruit", is as average as it is lethargic. There is no real direction and Lee Daniels got lost and never found his way out of the weeds. There was no tension, no reason to be invested in any of these characters except Billie Holiday, and that was fully due to Andra Day. Then you had a way over-the-top dog's funeral, Roy Cohn ( Senator Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel) and an insinuated lesbian relationship between Holiday and actress Tallulah Bankhead. Who knows if they had a thing....this film was splintering off in every direction imaginable, and it never found its center.

This was an ambitious film that never fulfilled its potential. Though Daniels has found his his niche in some areas, but this is not that niche. A truly skilled director and writer could have made a masterpiece, but Daniels and Suzan-Lori Parks, who wrote this schlock, never made the story and vision they had in their heads come to life, and that's a pity because the subject matter was there. I sincerely hope that Day wins an award for her performance, because she deserves it for making sweet tasting lemonade out of a hot mess of a film.

Andra Day is great...

[directortim2012 · 6/10 · 8 March 2021]

But the film is a mess. Poorly written, haphazardly directed and edited. I love Billy Holiday and I should have loved this movie. Grateful for Andra Day's performance. It's up there with Frances McDormand's work in Nomadland as a top Oscar contender.

A bit disappointing movie about one of the greatest ever female black singers.

[imseeg · 6/10 · 5 May 2021]

Billie Holiday's voice was (and still is) unique. Her music was so sad and daunting, yet so beautiful.

UNFORTUNATELY this movie about her life is lacking brilliance. It is not a bad movie, not at all, but it never delivers any real intense drama. This movie just meanders a bit without ever really shining bright.

I would therefore not recommend this movie. Better put on an old record of Billie Holiday because her voice still is unsurpassed and magnificently chilling and SO gorgeous!

The story: Billie Holiday is a black female blues singer who is targeted by the police for daring to expose racism in her popular songs.

Breakthrough performance by Andra Day

[gortx · 11 March 2021]

The title is a tip-off that this isn't going to be a general bio-pic. It's a prosecution of a case. Director Lee Daniels has never been accused of being a subtle filmmaker, but here he and writer Suzan-Lori Parks are weilding a mighty gavel. It's a miracle than novice singer turned actress Andra Day still shines.

The basic facts here are indisputable: Billie Holiday was hounded by the government, had a series of bad marriages and died at a tragically young age (44). Still, Daniels' approach of dwelling solely on the abuses of Holiday's life, whether they be legal, physical, sexual or narcotics- related, does a disservice not only to the singer, but to the 'case' he is trying to make. Daniels uses a catalog of tricks which sometimes work - using 16mm and 35mm film for flashbacks (although using digital 'scratches' on the celluloid is a hoary cliche); And some that don't - a long heroin fueled fever dream.

What's missing here is Holiday's artistry. Her inner soul. She had affairs with famous, successful people of both sexes -- but there's no evidence here of why they would be attracted to her. Surely, she had a wit and a charm that goes beyond being an attractive famous chanteuse. Parks' script focuses on the blunt-spoken, yet needy part of her personality, not her passions.

Day does a remarkable job in a blunt, honest way that isn't all actor-ticks. And, unsurprisingly, the singer shines on stage during the performance scenes. It's a breakthrough for her, even if the film around her is in shambles. One is much better off with one of the numerous Documentaries on Holiday.

Did Learn Some Things

[evanston_dad · 6/10 · 3 May 2021]

I did actually learn some things about Billie Holiday that I didn't know, namely that her song "Strange Fruit" was an anthem for racial injustice and that the FBI used drugs as an excuse to relentlessly pursue her so that they could arrest her and keep her from performing, thereby depriving her the opportunity to incite black audiences. That is the actually very intriguing kernel around which this biopic is structured, but it's diluted by the hot mess of this film's screenplay, that spends far too much time on Holiday's tumultuous relationships with various men in her life.

One of those men is FBI agent Jimmy Fletcher, who's assigned the task of following Holiday around and catching her out. He's black himself, and is subjected to the racial hierarchy within the department, so over time his allegiances switch to Holiday and he becomes her ally. Again, this is actually an interesting parallel story. But again, it's also diluted by everything else going on in this muddled movie.

Why, for example, is the character of Talullah Bankhead and the possible lesbian relationship she had with Holiday even in the film? That story is introduced and literally goes nowhere, as if whole sections of the movie were edited out at the last minute. And why do all the white FBI agents have to be played as caricature villains, as if we won't sympathize enough with the black people unless the white people are as cartoonishly awful as possible. And why does the screenplay feel the need to have characters just tell us what the movie's themes are without allowing us to come to conclusions ourselves? At one point, a black character tells the worst of the FBI agents that the department hates Holiday because she's black and beautiful and threatening (or words to that affect), to which my response was, "well duh."

And there are ridiculous sex scenes and lots of scenes of people using drugs and getting beat up and yelling and fighting. None of this bothered me because of the content, but rather because it all just becomes monotonous and traffics in the most tired of biopic tropes.

Andra Day gives an impressive performance that stands as probably the film's biggest asset. The Academy got it right when they nominated her for an Oscar but chose not to reward anything else about the movie.

Grade: B-

Good enough, don't get all the hating

[PedroPires90 · 6/10 · 24 April 2021]

I honestly can't get all the bad reviews. It's not a bad movie and it's much better than Judy that gave the Oscar to Zelwegger.

The structure is strange and the editing is sometimes erratic, but there are strong performance here, especially Andra Day who is absolutely fantastic. It's not a terrible screenplay as I've heard from some critics and didn't bore me for even a minute. Good soundtrack, as expected, and sometimes powerful.

Yes, we could have had and we wanted a better movie about Billie Holliday, but this is still a good film.

Amazing acting, bad production

[camillaelmstrom · 6/10 · 1 June 2021]

I have been a fan of Billie 'Lady Day' Holiday for the majority of my life, and I thought that this movie didn't necessarily depict her life, instead it primarily focused on the government and Billie Holiday due to her drug abuse. I thought that the film depicted her in a pretty bad light, rather than depicting the amazing impact that she had on the world during the civil rights movement in the US as well as impacting the music industry, exploring the important affects and terrible, toxic environment within the industry. However, I did think that Andra Day, who played Billie Holiday, gave an amazing performance of the artist. The performances of the actors and actresses was amazing, all of them combined as they showed the raw, intimate relations between the people. However the major problem with the movie was how they depicted her life and had it primarily surrounding her drug addiction.

Lady Day vs Fake History

[ozjosh03 · 4/10 · 5 March 2021]

Lady Day deserves much better than this muddled, often tedious and substantially apocryphal "biopic" from Lee Daniels. In this telling of Billie Holiday's life the song Strange Fruit becomes central to the narrative, with government forces determined to stop her singing the mournful lament, afraid that it will ignite a civil rights movement. At one point she's even dragged from the stage after singing just the first few lines. The problem with all of this is it never happened. Federal Narcotics chief Harry Anslinger apparently claimed in letters that he "asked" holiday not to sing the song, but - even if that's true - that's about as far as it went. Holiday was never dragged off stage for singing the song; in fact, she sang the song in the very concert in which the film depicts this as happening. In any case, the civil rights movement was already a growing force long before Strange Fruit became a popular protest song. As for Billie, she was never especially political and was initially ambivalent about performing Strange Fruit. She was convinced more by the way it would be dramatically staged as a final number than by any notions about the political clout of the lyrics. So to make the song central to her life and have Billie so passionate about performing it any cost is in itself dishonest. But then so much of Daniels' film, from the weird Quentin Crisp-like Reginald Lord Divine character who interviews Billie (he never existed) to the romantic affair with FBI agent Jimmy Fletcher, for which there is zero evidence. At best the film offers brief glimpses into the reality of Billie's life, but they're so swamped with apocrypha that you'll have trouble identifying them. Which makes this a pretty messed up biopic, and an extremely half-assed tribute to the great singer. The only saving grace in all of this is Andra Day, who manages to look and sound like Billie for the most part. But even here there are caveats. Day's performances of Holiday's songs are more impressive as vocal impressions than they are for evoking the emotion and pathos that made Billie legendary. And, sad to say, her rendition of Strange Fruit is oddly stilted, almost bland. Not to mention severely truncated. Never mind that this is the song the entire film revolves around. Strange, indeed.

RAW

[cydills-85158 · 8/10 · 27 February 2021]

This version is so much more like the way I pictured Lady Day. Miss Day did an excellent job. This was raw and much better then the sugar coated Motown version. I would have given it 10 stars but it seemed very disjointed in the beginning.

Historical recreation with no dramatic structure

[Quinoa_Chris_Kirk · 6/10 · 6 May 2021]

Jazz singer Billie Holliday struggles with addiction to heroin and men while being persistently harassed by the FBI for racist reasons.

A spectacularly impressive recreation of a historical milieu, with settings, costumes, make-up, ways of speaking and cultural attitudes supremely realistic and immersive. Every scene is a magnificently composed world, but together they form no cohesive narrative, no complex thematic expression apart from a recreation in popular form of a racist history, and no interesting trajectory for a complex, inspirational, talented woman apart from self-destruction and degeneration. There is no depth, no overarching motivation, no transformation, just a pain explained in flashbacks of trauma. Like her controversial song "Strange Fruit", the painful and shameful recent history of racist America is being revealed, but is Holliday's strength and talent and legacy being honoured, is her story being given the depth it deserves? Andra Day's performance is the same, extremely impressive on the surface, powerfully lucid within an individual scene, but no dramatic shape. Perhaps the screenplay is to blame. It amounts to a glossy surface and no heart.

The film's political theme is clear: lynchings have not yet been banned, even if her song about them was. But the more intimate theme is perhaps akin to Asif Kapadia's powerful documentary Amy: that we, from our distance, though the veil of the media, have some empathy and patience for the particular and real challenges faced by those who pour themselves into music for us.

Slow movie with a Great Performance

[Neon_Gold · 4/10 · 28 February 2021]

I didn't know much about the subject that the film regarded so I looked on Wikipedia just to get the sort of basic plot. I feel like that is what the filmmakers did too. It was insanity surface level.

I think I wanted to know more about Billie's life as a person and what she was like. It was just like "oh how sad is this!! Look how sad. She is just sad". I can appreciate that because it is a sad story but I think it would have been nice to have peeks and valleys just so it wouldn't have been so one note. Billie seems like a fabulous person and there is so much more to her than just sad.

I do think that it handled everything really respectfully and it wasn't scared about showing anything. Some of the scenes are extremely harrowing and upsetting.

Andrea Day was fantastic though. She really had this sadness behind her performance. It was fantastic and definitely the best part of the movie.

I think that it could have been trimmed down as well. It was meandering and wasted it's time on pointless plots.

Amazing performance

[bullet-myvalentine-353-90337 · 8/10 · 2 March 2021]

The movie is a bit slow at first but then it got me hooked up to it really fast. I loved andra day's performance so much. Everytime she sang, I felt it

Andra Day rules!

[T2TLED · 6/10 · 24 March 2021]

Andra Day is amazing! But the story and script is a hot mess.

Andra Day gives a solid performance in a very poor screenplay

[blaxblew · 3/10 · 27 February 2021]

Andra Day is very talented and she definitely has potential as an actress with the right director and screenplay. Her singing is excellent in the film - she hits every one of Billie Holiday's hauntingly earthy inflections. The problem is the film itself. It is very confusing with characters in and out who are not explained. We don't learn a lot of substance about Billie Holiday's life - at least anything verifiable - except what we already knew from Lady Sings the Blues. Perhaps my expectations were too high, no pun intended, but I expected this film to give audiences a more intimate picture of her life - her as a complex woman, not just a singing caricature with a heroin needle in her arm. Instead, this is another one of those biopics where the lead actor or actress does more character imitation than provide true insights into the actual subject and her life. This is also one of those films where the singing goes on far too long, but when that happens you know it's because the writing and screenplay are usually thin and the music is used to overcompensate for that. One of the most disturbing things for me is that the film shows a lot of men in and out of her life, and even tries to create romance out of a viciously violent relationship, her and Lewis McCabe. I need films to stop pretending that Black women love to have their asses stomped by the men in their lives. That's NOT love so don't sugar coat it on film. It's even worse that this is a very light complected woman who never has a single bruise on her face when we see her, even as he's constantly smacking and punching her. I think this film probably could have been a lot better with a different director and certainly with a much better screenplay.

Andra Day dresses, sings, and acts this tragic part perfectly

[goldenlampshade · 4 March 2021]

This movie would make a great triple feature with Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and Judas and the Black Messiah for showcasing racism and injustice systemic and culturally nakedly and honestly. The US vs. Billie Holiday really makes you frustrated in all the right ways and at all the right people but also inspires people like me who didn't know much about this history to learn more and educate oneself since those who don't learn from history...anyway...Andra Day gives an incredible performance and Trevante Rhodes balances the line of someone you want to smack in the face one second and kiss the next. Impeccable gowns and hairstyling add to the glamor and realism of the music being sung so beautifully by her swingin, emotional voice. Day expresses a lot in those eyes tender one minute and giving diva the next. Maybe it's not perfect from a filmmaking point of view but not in any innegligible way and the image of Andra Day screaming with joy and pride in her Golden Globe acceptance speech is enough to make me feel good inside knowing she gave this her all and that her idol would be proud.

A Brilliant leading performance

[valleyjohn · 7/10 · 31 March 2021]

Up until now I'd never heard of Andra Day but I watched this because she has been nominated for an Oscar for her performance and I can say it's totally justified. It's a fantastic portrayal of Billie Holiday , it's just a shame that the film itself doesn't live up to her billing .

This follows Billie Holiday's during her career as she is targeted by the Federal Department of Narcotics with an undercover sting operation led by black Federal Agent Jimmy Fletcher, with whom she had a an affair.

I have a few problems with this film . Firstly it feels that Andra Days performance is a little wasted in movie that is so misguided.

It feels like a stage play at times and that it's formulaic process where we go from singing , to drug taking to FBI involvement over and over again gets extremely boring .

The acting around Andes Day is average at best . Travante Rhodes who plays Jimmy Fletcher is unconvincing and Garrett Hedlund who plays Harry Anslinger is even less so . His mumbling would put Tom Hardy to shame and because of its problems it's feels way too long yet it's only just over two hours .

It's good to learn about Billie Holiday and how badly she was treated by the US and to listen to her music but while the actual portrayal does her justice , sadly the film doesn't.

The United States v. Billie Holiday

[JoBloTheMovieCritic · 7/10 · 7 March 2021]

7/10 - thanks in large part to an outstanding performance from Andra Day as Billie Holiday, this story that needs to be shared with the masses should receive lots of awards consideration

Great Central Performance...Scattered Mess of a Movie

[bankofmarquis · 6/10 · 17 April 2021]

Lee Daniels is a passionate filmmaker and his passion for bringing the story of Billie Holiday to the screen as the embodiment of the African American struggle against White Officials who are trying to mute her is evident in every frame of THE UNITED STATES VS. BILLIE HOLIDAY.

Unfortunately, he tries to do so much with this film, that he accomplishes very little.

Let's start with what works in this film: the TERRIFIC performance of Andra Day as the titular character. Day embodies the troubled artist strongly and she does all of the singing of this world renowned performer. It is a superb performance and she rightfully deserves her Oscar nomination.

What doesn't work? Pretty much the rest of the film.

Daniels has so much material to work with - and a terrific actress at the center of it - that he tried to cram EVERYTHING into this film, consequently, the film is scattered and doesn't know what it wants to be.

Is it a biopic? A look at an artist who overcame a horrific childhood? A look at an artist that is battling demons? A look at an artist that has toxic relationships with men? Or...is it about the United States Government trying to suppress free speech in order to keep the African American from rising up in the 1950's?

The answer is...it is all of that...and none of that. Just when you think the film has it's footing in one direction, it pivots in another and rarely gets back to tie off the other.

For example, look at the title of the film - THE UNITED STATES VS. BILLIE HOLIDAY. So, it must be about the United States (in this instance, the Federal Drug Agents) trying to bring Billie Holiday to justice. And...at the beginning it IS about that...namely in the guise of stopping her from singing STRANGE FRUIT and trying to frame her for her drug use. So...you would think that the film will, eventually, get Holiday on stage to sing a triumphant FULL version of Strange Fruit.

You would think that, wouldn't you.

Now...to be fair to Daniels and this film, there is about a 15 minute portion of this film in the middle that shows Holiday's heartbreaking childhood, followed by a haunting song sung by Day. It is a very effective portion of the film, and that (and Day's performance) are worth wading through the "highlights and lowlights" of Holiday's life that is the rest of this film.

I have not seen the lauded 1972 LADY SINGS THE BLUES that is a more straightforward Bio-pic of the singer (starring Diana Ross), after watching this film, I think I will.

Letter Grade: B- (because of Day's performance and that 15 minute segment)

6 stars (out of 10) and you can take that to the Bank(ofMarquis)

Day Brightens Dull Biopic

[Cineanalyst · 4/10 · 26 February 2021]

The costumes and overall historical production design looks good, and Andra Day is great playing Billie Holiday, but otherwise "The United States vs. Billie Holiday" is a meandering, poorly-constructed biopic. That despite the reflexive framing of the story as a recorded interview that should've focused the narrative besides reflecting the audial sensation of Holiday's singing.

Instead, we get a plot that often doesn't seem to be going anywhere besides from scene to scene of shooting up heroin, from concert to concert and abuse or sex scenes from man to man, with a hint of bisexuality. A wallowing, hot-mess portrait of Lady Day. All the while, cut occasionally to narcs planting evidence or saying something racist and inevitably being told off to presumed audience cheering. Even if the remembered scenes of Holiday's past as the black FBI agent follows her from a lynching through her upbringing in a brothel is almost effective, the montage covering again the aforementioned sort of scenes we've already seen several times in slight variations, plus some fight between two guys, certainly isn't. And to top it off there's that atonal, fourth-wall-breaking mid-credits scene after the requisite biopic text at the end to give us the Wikipedia headlines of what happened to the characters after the movie.

Yet, Day is great, an actual singer who sings the part and in the imitated style of the character she's performing. Her reported weight loss and picking up of smoking and drinking for the part is some impressive dedication, too, even if she wisely didn't go to Nick Nolte levels of method acting in using heroin as he did for "The Good Thief" (2002). Day deserved better direction, the social commentary on civil rights deserved more than simplistic tropes, "Strange Fruit" better than "Tigress and Tweed," and Holiday a more focused biographical picture.

I'll have to check out "Lady Sings the Blues" (1972), which stars Diana Ross and also received awards attention, someday for comparison.

Outstanding!

[btl-86388 · 10/10 · 27 February 2021]

I have been a Lady Day fan as long as I can remember. I am always skeptical when a movie or book come out that they will tell an accurate story. This movie was as honest as they come. It is hard to portray the very complicated life of Billie Holiday in just a few hours, but they pulled it off. The struggles, the defiance, the broken humanness, the brutal authenticity; it's all there. If you only ever read one book or watch one movie to learn about Lady Day, make this the one!

A movie where seeing isBelieving

[Terryfan · 7/10 · 14 October 2021]

I had first heard of Billie Holiday when I was in school General Music and we learn about "Strange Fruit" her controversial song. Needless to say I never forgotten my experience listening to the song Also a friend got to be a extra in the movie so he told me what it was like on set of the movie The United States Vs. Billie Holiday is a movie biography on Billie Holiday's battle to get her song out there only for a team of agents to try and stop her.

Andra Day delivered a strong performance as Billie Holiday each time she is on the screen she don't have nothing holding her back.

However one thing that I feel the overdue of sex scenes really does take away the movie as there are too many sex scenes.

The movie also shows how drugs and personal demons are dangerous as the movie shows Billie's drug addiction was strong. There is a lot of drug use in the movie.

But that can't stop you from watching the movie as it is emotional driven with a lot of sad moments and moments where you have to hold back with some of the most depressing scenes in the history of Motion Pictures.

If you like to watch a movie about Billie Holiday then this one is going to keep your attention.

I give The United States Vs. Billie Holiday a 7 out of 10.

A bad script vs. Billie Holiday

[rafajack-56549 · 2/10 · 28 February 2021]

I read another review that said pretty much everything I wanted to say so I'll try to be concise. One could say that the movie is more about "look how Andra Day looks and talks and sings like Billie Holiday" than about the artist's life, I mean we all heard her songs a thousand times over the years do we really need so many musical numbers? We have the records silly! It's just a bunch of scenes stuck together with almost no continuity for 2 hours, not that linearity is a must for any picture but if you're telling the story of a person that actually lived you might as well have some, right? Andra Day is amazing and I hope she gets nominated for an Academy Award! That said, go watch Lady Sings The Blues or read Billie's autobigraphical book with the same name.

A Must Watch Movie.

[luvulife23 · 10/10 · 27 February 2021]

I just had to write a review because this movie was so good.I need someone to talk to about it. Now I love Lady sings the Blues but this movie was way more informative and explained so much that Lady Sings the Blues left out.

The United States vs Billie Holiday

[rnixon-15663 · 6/10 · 3 May 2021]

The united states vs Billie Holiday 2021 15 Director: Lee Daniels Starring: Andra Day, Trevante Rhodes, Garrett Hedlund, Natasha Lyonne, Leslie Jordan, Miss Lawrence, etc

Overall rating 67/100

The united states vs Billie Holliday is about the legendary singer Billie Holliday (Andra Day), as we follow her career as she is targeted by the federal department of narcotics with an undercover sting operation led by black federal agent Jimmy Fletcher (Trevante Rhodes), with whom she has a tumultuous affair with. I have very mixed feeling on this film, there was some excellent moments but also an equal amount of frustratingly poor moments. Let's get started.

My first few positives would be the powerful beginning, how likeable Billie was and the fantastic performances, the conflict being well set up with the government, as well as the great soundtrack. I thought that the beginning was really powerful and linked well with the message of the film and connected with billie really well, it was heart-breaking to see the poor judgement of people with colour and the barbaric behaviour of lynching's was awful, but it set up the tone and themes of the film really well and signified the importance of Billie as a person with her song strange fruit. I also thought that Billie Holliday was a very likeable person, despite being very flawed to the point of over dramatization in places (more on that in a future paragraph) Billie was unapolagetically herself, didn't take no crap from anyone and was an important symbol in the fight for racial equality, and when she was told to keep her mouth shut she did the complete opposite. I also have to praise Andra Day for her absolutely incredible performance, she was the best part of the film and completely deserved her Oscar nomination. Her performance was powerful, moving and charming and she bought Billie Holliday to life in such an incredible way and she stole every scene she was in I honestly couldn't keep my eyes off her. I also thought the conflict between Billie and the government was excellently done. When Billie was in her prime in the 40's and 50's there was unfortunately a lot of racial inequality still so therefore the government wanted her gone as she represented a change that they didn't want to see, It was horrifying to see them do everything in their power to get Billie arrested and target her, effecting her mental health in a very negative way, which also triggered some good conflict with Billie and her friends as she began to spiral out of control, you couldn't help but sympathise with her in parts. Finally, I also thought the soundtrack was excellent, Billie was an incredible artist, her voice was haunting, and her songs had so much power and meaning and represented a change in racial equality with strange fruit being a powerful song that was sung beautifully.

My next few positives would be the strong dialogue, fantastic cinematography. As well as great character development and depth. I thought that the movie did an absolutely excellent job with its dialogue, it had some very moving lines that bought the character of Billie to life so well conveying her snappy and care free attitude well, as well as building tension and conflict effectively highlighting how white people talked down to and treated black people in the 40's. I also thought the cinematography was excellent, there was some really great set pieces and creative shots. I also really liked the creative blending of the black and white and found footage of Billie with the film I thought that was a really nice creative touch. I thought that the movie also had excellent character depth, Billie was a troubled soul and the more you learned about the more you understood why she turned to alcohol and drugs as a coping mechanism, her disturbing childhood, not feeling good enough or welcome anywhere, and her being constantly targeted by the government took a really negative toll on her and she used alcohol and drugs to take the pain and negative thoughts away, this was really moving especially in the second half of the move and as her character developed we began to understand her and her struggles.

My first few negatives would be the lack of set up or explanation to certain characters, some unneeded scenes, an occasional emotional disconnect to the plot and characters and the odd characterisation of Billie. I thought the movie oddly set up a lot of characters with a lack of set up or explanation into who they actually were, this made the pacing very clunky, because it was often very confusing who the characters were, and it too often felt the film was just expecting you to know who the people were so just skipped straight into them being in a relationship with Billie for months. I also felt like there was a lot of unneeded scenes that just felt too much like filler, there was scenes that could of simply been cut as they served no purpose to the overall message of the film particular examples would have to be the funeral of Billie's dog and certain scenes with Billie's and fans. For me there was an occasional emotional disconnect to the film especially in the first half, it felt like the movie was undecided on how to depict Billie as a person. One minute the movie was aligning you with her and her cause, the next the movie almost turned against her making Billie seem horrible, cruel and a burden to her community with certain characters attacking her about her issues and forgetting the impact she had. This just felt like very odd and inconsistent characterisation for me and I struggled to connect with the film, this became more focused for her character in the second half but they still felt a bit divided on how people should see her.

My final few positives would be the chemistry between the cast, the powerful themes on racism and emotional weight, the excellent building of tension and the powerful ending. I thought the whole cast had excellent chemistry with Andra Day and they bounced off each other really well, all of their friendships were fun and believable and gave the movie some much needed light hearted humour. I thought the movie tackled its themes on racism excellently, it really went into great depths in the divide of races and how black people were treated, and even when they were in the police like Jimmy was they were still being manipulated for their own gain. This made the movie had a lot of emotional weight as it was truly horrifying to watch the actions people took just because of a difference in skin colour, it was executed authentically and powerfully, and Billie's spiral into ill health was also very well done and emotional, as she never lost who she was, and her legacy still remained. I also thought the movie-built tension really well for a hard-hitting final act. As the allegations and attacks against Billie got bigger and bigger, I genuinely didn't know what was going to happen to her and the negative impact it had on her health, it was heart-breaking to watch but also powerfully done, with a had hitting ending that stayed true to who Billie was as a person and had important messages on racism and linking to the modern day as well.

My final few negatives would be the lack of sympathy to characters due to the glorifying of drugs, the clunky structure and pacing issues. I thought that the film made it fairly hard to connect to Billie and the other characters and to sympathise with them, especially in the first half, the movie didn't really portray drugs as a bad thing or the cause of billie's declining health instead it was portrayed more casually and was obsessively used in normal situations with friends, this for me creates a bit of a lack of connection to the people involved, it happened too often and could have been handled much better. I also thought that the movie had an extremely clunky structure and really bad pacing issues, the movie felt very episodic and just felt like a series of big events in her life. There was nothing in between and the film often cut into scenes that we didn't have a clue what was happening, or spoon feeding us information in the dialogue that we could of seen for set up and context. This made the whole film feel very clunky and rush and was fairly poorly structured.

Overall, despite a truly Oscar worthy performance from Andra Day, bringing Billie Holiday to life in a fascinating character study, and the film hitting all of the right notes with its themes on racism. It far to often gets trapped in its clunky structure, misguided characterisation of Billie and occasional bad handling of some deeper themes, that the film often looses itself and its authenticity, therefore making it not as strong as previous biopics.

Day shines in an otherwise flat and at times unpleasant film

[jtindahouse · 5/10 · 29 March 2021]

Every year I watch all the Oscar contenders, including films which contain a nominated acting performance. I looked at the list this year and 'The United States vs. Billie Holiday' stood out clearly as being the one that interested me the least. I have never heard a Billie Holiday song before, the plot didn't sound very interesting and the IMDb rating was significantly lower than all the other films. Sometimes those films that you least expect to like are the ones that blow you away. Sadly that was not the case on this occasion. I didn't have much fun with this one at all.

Andra Day has been nominated for Best Actress at the Academy Awards and it couldn't be more deserved. The fact she shines so brightly in a film that is so messy and dull only makes it that much better. I'm loving this trend lately of singers taking on acting roles and knocking it out of the park. Her singing was beautiful and she played the part perfectly, never skipping a scene. It wasn't a glamorous role, but she was willing to get dirty and gritty and I respect that.

The films biggest problem is that it is just so dull. There is no tension or drama created. We are basically just told that this woman is a train-wreck - now watch her for two hours. That's not much fun. Also I understand that she was far from a perfect person, but when she's our lead character and she's this selfish and self-destructive it is almost impossible to side with her. I'm not sure what the better way would have been to go about making a film like this, but all I know is this version was pretty unpleasant to watch.