Review : The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021)
From the first time that my young ears heard Strange Fruit, I was fascinated with Billie Holiday. As my jazz education grew, I learned more about her “controversial” past, and how it influenced the music she created. While Lady Sings the Blues was around well before The United States vs. Billie Holiday, Lady Sings the Blues seemingly had the agenda of boosting the profile of Diana Ross as a solo artist in its depiction of Billie Holiday’s life. To my knowledge, this is the first film that explicitly focuses on how Holiday became entangled in the war on drugs as backlash for her attempts to shed a light on civil rights, which immediately made it much-watch material for me (which was only further validated by Andra Day’s Golden Globes win).
During an interview with Reginald Lord Devine (Leslie Jordan), Billie Holiday (Andra Day) is questioned about her persistence to sing Strange Fruit despite powerful objections to it. Holiday reminisces on her fame and the freedom it should have afforded her, but due to governmental opposition from politicians like Harry J. Anslinger (Garrett Hedlund), members of her camp such as her husband Monroe (Erik LaRay Harvey) and her manager Joe Glaser (Dusan Dukic) press her to change her tune. Anslinger, at his wit’s end in regard to stopping Holiday’s (and jazz music as a whole) influence over the masses, poses a plan to attack Holiday’s credibility via her connection to drugs. Holday shares a chance encounter with a young soldier named Jimmy Fletcher (Trevante Rhodes), but she soon finds out that Fletcher works for the FBN, and after an arrest, Holiday is booked and sentenced to jail time, a vicious cycle that continues to haunt her professionally and personally.
The United States vs. Billie Holiday does the majority of heavy lifting by presenting Billie Holiday as an example of fame not even being enough to equalize Black stars in the eyes of the public, and especially within the eyes of the powers that be. The tactics presented are definitely not new, and many are still implemented to this day, but that doesn’t take away from the pain of Holiday’s forced fall from grace. The psychological warfare that comes with being the target of the government’s ire is laid out via deception, the tarnishing of identity, and eventually, the removal of rights. Since no side presented is absent of wrongdoing, we are shown how the fallout of these actions impacts people on all sides of the created conflicts, especially in the story of Jimmy Fletcher, who literally plays both sides throughout the course of the story.
As a Billie Holiday biopic, this one is a brutally honest presentation of her confrontational nature. In all fairness, for someone who was simply trying to bring awareness to human rights atrocities via the platform she was given, the way she was treated as public enemy number one was unnecessary. At times, the Lee Daniels habit of being a bit on the melodramatic side presents itself, which can be distracting, but it almost seems as if he embellishes in Holiday’s darkness in hopes that his somewhat dramatic camp can offset that. Precious famously found him taking a similar approach of stripping away all of the glamour from key actresses while bathing them in despair, and just like Mo’Nique, Andra Day has already found herself the beneficiary of accolades for the approach, so more power to Lee Daniels for unlocking the secrets to the game.
Despite my feelings on the way that Lee Daniels directs his actors, I will happy admit that he has production chops for days. Casting Andra Day as Billie Holiday more than covers the bases in terms of making sure the musicality is handled, as Day has already proven herself with a successful music career prior to venturing into the world of acting. The film is rich with a golden hue that induces a sense of nostalgia in spite of the very dark places in which the story traverses. That sense of darkness and impending doom is further driven by the score, which methodically carries us from performance to performance. The editing and shifts between looks works well in tandem with the cinematography, presented as a camera that dances just on the outskirts of the emotionally raw epicenters it witnesses.
Anda Day manages to take her confidence derived from her musical talents and infuse it into an authentic, true to the heart approximation of Holiday’s famous accent and mannerisms without overdoing it, which makes her the center of attention in any frame she exists in. Leslie Jordan does a powerful job of setting the tone through playful ignorance, both of the weight behind Holiday’s intentions and Reginald Lord Devine’s hurtful words. Miss Lawrence provides powerfully raw unconditional protection as a bodyguard figure, while Da’Vine Joy Randolph plays counterpart to that physical rawness by providing unconditional truth, making the pair a powerful backing force for Day’s presence as Holiday. As for forces of opposition (of which plenty can be found), Tevante Rhodes plays the most dynamic foil, despite a seemingly constricted performance that or may not have been consciously kept within a certain boundary of expression. Tone Bell and Erik LaRay Harvey give the alpha male character textures, while Garrett Hedlund and Randy Davison sat in as more traditional antagonists. Lester Young had shades of the alpha in his performance, but leaned more into the realms of emotional manipulation than brute force. Appearances by Melvin Gregg, Kevin Hanchard, Natasha Lyonne, Dusan Dukic, Warren “Slim” Williams, Evan Ross and more fill out the cast.
While an entertaining movie, and possibly a bit of an emotional strain for those not familiar with the work of Lee Daniels, I can give The United States vs. Billie Holiday kudos for illustrating how timeless the treatment of Black artists who go against the grain can be. For its high production value, I’d like to try and place it in a double feature with a film like Straight Out of Compton, a film with equally high production value and a nearly identical narrative (minus the drug addiction aspect) in hopes that this similarity can be clearly illustrated.