THE WORLD ACCORDING TO ALLEE WILLIS

The World According to Allee Willis, Magnolia Pictures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 14, 2024

In her mind, nothing Allee Willis did seemed to be good enough. That kept her working across different artistic and creative fields for the entirety of her life, and director Alexis Manya Spraic's The World According to Allee Willis suggests this documentary is, in a way, a continuation of the songwriter and artist's work.

That might come across as a little presumptuous, but soon enough, Spraic backs up the notion. At its foundation, this is a biographical documentary, covering the life of its subject from her childhood until her death, but the pieces assembling the narrative are mostly autobiographical to some degree. Willis kept an entire archive of her life and career in the North Hollywood home she bought in 1979—a veritable museum to her work during her life and an actual one following her sudden death in 2019. The filmmaker has access to it all—journal entries, audio diaries, home videos, photographs, handwritten notes and lyrics—and uses it to allow Willis to tell her own story.

It's quite the compelling one, too, for a woman who spent her life in the background of some of the major music acts and at least one of the most popular songs ever recorded. That one's "September" by Earth, Wind & Fire, by the way, and almost anyone would probably be content with accomplishing something to have that timeless tune under the belt. That wasn't the case with Willis, though, who wrote hit songs across three decades and never appeared to accept that such an oeuvre was any kind of achievement worth noting.

That's not a consequence of humility or anything like that. Willis was certain she was destined for great things, and while most of the friends and colleagues interviewed here point out that she did accomplish great things in her 72 years of life, the tone of Willis' own words and her constant drive to keep doing new and different things tell another story. There's a bittersweet quality to this film, because the collection of Willis' songs on the soundtrack and the innovative way in which she turned her life into a kind of art installation are so joyous, but meanwhile, we only hear doubt, uncertainty, regret, and melancholy when Willis herself speaks of what she has done.

Much of that, if one wants to do some armchair psychoanalyzing, comes from her childhood, in which her supportive mother died while Willis was a teen and her father, a beloved figure in her life until that tragedy, never understood or accepted Willis' creative ambitions and lifestyle. Growing up in Detroit, Willis speaks of sitting on the lawn of Motown Records, listening to recording sessions through the thin walls of the ordinary house that was the label's headquarters throughout most of the 1960s.

The music appealed to her on a core level, but after many radio battles in the car with her father and his dismissal of his daughter's interests, the father gave Willis a note with a single sentence before she went to college. "Stay away from Black culture," it read. Willis held on to it, framed it, and, obviously, didn't listen to what it said.

While this is mostly a chronological narrative of Willis' life, Spraic is smart to hit us with "September" pretty quickly into the film. Those who know nothing about Willis' life, of course, will know that song, recognize that this is someone worth learning about, and maybe assume that what follows in the documentary will build to that point. Instead, the song only comes up in passing again, as Willis notes the royalties let her buy that house and, late in the film, we see her explode with glee at hearing a street musician playing it on a saxophone. There's a lot more to learn about Willis than a single song, no matter how lasting it may be.

It catches us by surprise, then, to learn about the litany of hits she wrote and artists with whom she worked, including Bonnie Rait, Pet Shop Boys, and the Pointer Sisters, whose "Neutron Dance" led Willis to be dubbed "the most dangerous woman in the world" by the Soviet Union's official newspaper. That little piece of trivia is actually how Spraic opens the film, so it surprises with the details from the very start.

Yes, much of the story itself is pretty routine, as it highlights song after song, career shift after career shift, and gradual recognition after gradual recognition. The form of the film, which does extensively use first-hand accounts and archival footage, means it doesn't feel routine, however. This is Willis' life, as told mainly by the woman herself.

Also on hand, though, are those friends and associates, including Verdine White of Earth, Wind & Fire and Cyndi Lauper and the late Paul Reubens and businessman Mark Cuban, whose appearance seems odd initially among other artists, musicians, and, well, eccentrics. When we learn why Cuban is here, though, it's yet another shock, as Willis pretty much envisioned our modern world of social media and networking while the internet was still a source of confusion to many in the public.

Through it all, though, we also hear and see Willis as someone filled with insecurities, mainly about her career, and self-deprecation, primarily about her sexuality and not wanting it to be known to even her closest friends. She makes the achievements on display in The World According to Allee Willis look easy, because they just kept coming. While the last section of the film provides some hope that Willis found the personal satisfaction she had spent her life seeking, the documentary provides a lot of insight into just how difficult all of this was for her.

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