User reviews

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.

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.

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.

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.

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-

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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)

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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 Life of jazz singer Billie Holiday brought to life through an impressive performance by Andra Day. A drug addict, a woman of great courage and determination who challenged the US anti Narcotics dept tasked by the Govt to put her down by jailing her. Her main crime was that she insisted on singing the inflammatory song " Strange fruit " describing the lynching of blacks. Till her death she took a defiant stand and refused to cow down to FBI agents.

The film is made well and Andra Day carries it splendidly on her shoulders. Her acting also improves as the film develops and the ending scenes see her emoting superbly.

Lee Daniels's direction is admirable. He has captured the atmosphere well but his big achievement is in getting Andra Day to do a fabulous job. The music tracks are melodious and foot tapping, specially All of me, Them there eyes, caint no grave hold my body down and of course Strange fruit. They are also attractively picturised.

Which is scant praise indeed, as that Billie Holiday biopic was mostly a Diana Ross vehicle complete with cover tunes. And while she gave an enjoyable, Oscar nominated performance, the film really sold Holiday, and especially her music, short. It should be noted that most of the lyrics of Strange Fruit were omitted. So much so that I didn't even 'get' that song when watching the film upon its release.

But this film puts Strange Fruit right, although it takes an agonizing hour and a half to hear it. But it does little else right. It's a huge, huge disappointment. Within the first 5 minutes we have terrible acting (Jimmy's mom, clearly dubbed), a very kludgey script, and lots and lots of ho-hum-ness. Hard to believe that this was directed by the same person who did The Butler and Empire.

It seems as if the director was trying to make a highly stylized, tongue in cheek film about Holiday's legal and political problems, and thus a less than obvious statement about America's sketchy racial past. Instead, it's too obvious, gratuitously anachronistic, as if only to please modern (young) audiences, and otherwise useless. With two, count 'em, two, big budget, high profile biopics about Holiday, you'd think one could get her right, esp this one, with the benefit of hindsight help from the first film.

Andra Day is fine as an elegant Holiday, and my few stars are for her and some of the other cast. The sets and costumes are great, if much out of time. Day's gowns are real eye candy, for sure, and Day is stunning, from her perfect hair down to her perfect shoes. Unfortunately, none of this makes the plodding, clumsy, retread rote grade school wokeness (and I'm usually all about woke, but can't we have a smart, grown up approach?) of this film worth it. Huge waste of money, talent, and Billie Holiday's memory. Please, would somebody get her legacy on film right someday????