Mark Reviews Movies: THE UNITED STATES VS. BILLIE HOLIDAY

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Review by Mark Dujsik | February 25, 2021

The main premise of The United States vs. Billie Holiday, as seen from the perspective of the main character (and in reality), is that the eponymous singer was persecuted and prosecuted by the U.S. government for daring to point out the history of and continued persecution and killings of Black people in America through song. The song is "Strange Fruit," that hauntingly poetic description of the horror of lynching, and it's introduced in this movie as if screenwriter Suzan-Lori Parks cribbed something from an encyclopedia—a rallying cry for the burgeoning civil rights movement.

The song itself is sung in one of director Lee Daniels' more effective scenes in this movie. It works, because it's all about Billie (Andra Day) singing the song—in close-up, with the stone face of passion and conviction, as the lyrics about "blood on the leaves and blood at the root" form an unmistakable image in our mind. Daniels, who doesn't shy away from bold gestures and melodramatic scenes in this movie, does know one thing for certain: This song doesn't require any gesture or drama beyond the fact and power of its performance.

It's a moment of such clarity, restraint, and impact that it seems out of place amongst the rest of this movie, which is unfocused, often over-the-top, and unclear in its ultimate purpose. At its core, of course, Parks' screenplay (based upon parts of Johann Hari's book Chasing the Scream) is a biography of Holiday's life—mostly the final decade or so of it, from the late 1940s until her death in 1959. This is a time of personal decline for the singer, as drug addiction and legal problems stemming from that affliction take their toll on her health and career.

Parks and Daniels, though, never determine what point they're trying to make in following this downward spiral with such grim fascination. On the one hand, the story is about how the government, namely the since-dissolved Federal Bureau of Narcotics and its overtly racist head Harry Anslinger (Garrett Hedlund), targets Billie, under the guise of looking for her heroin suppliers but actually for "un-American" activities. On the other hand, the movie's Billie is mostly apolitical, aside from the one performance of "Strange Fruit" and a few lines about suspecting political oppression for forcing people to confront the horror of lynching.

It's a story that attempts to return some power to the singer, not only for her talents, but also for her fight against these oppressive forces. It's also, though, a story that repeatedly and consistently paints Billie as a victim of addiction, controlling and abusive men, and the long stretch and resolute grip of the hands of the government. The story offers her a lifeline, although it's not through music or recovery.

The possible salvation comes by way of Jimmy Fletcher (Trevante Rhodes), a man who admires Billie, comes to love her, and, unlike every other man in her life in this telling, treats her with some basic decency (She's regularly abused by lovers, and the movie, strangely, almost argues that it's her choice, as a performance of "Ain't Nobody's Business," which excuses domestic abuse, seems to indicate). Jimmy is also the federal agent tasked by Anslinger to bring down Billie, but he eventually comes to regret and try to atone for this assignment.

That relationship, which becomes the key one, is just one of many left unexplored here, rendered rather simplified—just as the whole of the narrative is. It begins with a framing device of Billie being interviewed by a journalist (which is then mostly forgotten), leading us into a story that charts Billie's personal life and career, from just before she's arrested for narcotics possession until her death.

The story goes through the occasional ups (a post-prison performance at Carnegie Hall, the rebellious performance of "Strange Fruit," and some moments of true intimacy with Jimmy, after he decides to keep the feds in the dark about his investigation) and an abundance of downs. Without any clear goal in mind, Daniels presents everything here in the heightened style of melodrama. Undeniably, that approach is appropriate for the content of the material, with all the backstage drama, as well as the arguments and sex, happening here (Day's performance is admirably grounded in a sense of genuine pain). Within some bigger-picture idea, though, there's no context to these scenes beyond the usual trappings of a biography about a larger-than-life entertainer.

There are flashes of inspiration here, which makes the movie's ultimate hollowness more disappointing. A pair of scenes try to delve deeper into Billie's psychology (Jimmy's first experience with heroin somehow allows him to see and empathize with the singer's troubled past) and the reason she eventually decides to perform "Strange Fruit," despite the threats of club owners and legal authorities (During a brief stop in the South, Billie witnesses the aftermath of a lynching, and there's an almost surreal sequence of her wandering a house in agony and in search of narcotic relief). Otherwise, though, The United Sates vs. Billie Holiday is a confused and formulaic biography of an artist who deserves better.

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