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I knew little about Bessie Smith before this film and really none the wiser after it. Her life story differed little from other Queen of Blues from that era.
Queen Latifah stars in this HBO film as Bessie Smith who was one of the most popular female blues singers in the 1920s and 30s.
The film takes an episodic look at her life as well as flashbacks to traumatic parts of her childhood. We see Bessie being transformed to a struggling act with her brother to have the stage presence to sing the blues. We see her dalliance with both men and women, her volatile temper and her dealings with crooked businessmen and the casual racism of the time.
The film like a lot of biopics these days has almost a cookie cutter approach totally lacking in originality. Just by the synopsis of the film I had a good idea what the story was going to be about. It had no surprises apart from seeing Queen Latifah in the nude.
The writing seems poor at times. Bessie suddenly adopts a boy and its implied her man (Jack Gee) is the father of this child. She becomes wealthy and suddenly we have the great depression and Bessie has downsized. The plot did not always flow too well and given Bessie died at a relatively young age in an automobile accident this was not covered in the film.
However the there is some good production values, set design and cinematography. The cast do their best despite the script.
score 4/10
Prismark10 19 September 2015
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3319950/ |
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2-12-2019 12:30:57
