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Feb 26, 2021 · "The United States vs. Billie Holiday" is so misguided that it's hard to know where to start griping about it. It wallows in cruelty, misery, and degradation without providing insight into the historical personages who are so thoughtfully depicted by its cast.
- “Strange Fruit”
- Café Society
- Harry Anslinger’s War on Drugs
- The United States vs. Billie Holiday
- Billie’s Comeback
- Holiday’s Death and Legacy
The movie starts with a graphic photo of white people attacking a Black victim, with overlay text noting that in 1937, an anti-lynching bill was considered in the Senate, though it ultimately didn’t pass. This is true: A bill was introduced in the chamber early that year but was filibustered out of further consideration, although a version of the b...
Billie Holiday (Andra Day), accompanied by her stylist Miss Freddy (Miss Lawrence), sits down for an interview with radio journalist Reginald Lord Devine (Leslie Jordan). Neither of these two characters are real, though Daniels told Variety that Devine was based on “a fusion of Quentin Crisp and Skip E. Lowe.” Devine sets up a flashback to February...
This newspaper does serve as an introduction to another major figure: Harry J. Anslinger (Garrett Hedlund), then head of the Treasury Department’s Federal Bureau of Narcotics and one of the primary leaders of the government’s effort to stifle Holiday. Despite President Harry Truman’s tepid steps toward advancing civil rights for Black Americans, ra...
According to Holiday herself, she really was forced off the stage after singing “Strange Fruit” at Philadelphia’s Earle Theater in May 1947, despite having received a rapturous welcome at first. The next scenes are somewhat fudged: The movie depicts Holiday at Joe Guy’s New York apartment the day after the performance, where she’s apprehended by a ...
Holiday serves about a year at the prison before being let out early, by March 1948, for good behavior. After her release, her new manager Ed Fishman (Alain Goulem) wants to get her headlining Carnegie Hall. The effort goes through and the prestigious venue sells out, priming the path for Holiday’s comeback. While at the hall, someone yells for her...
Billie Holiday comes down with cirrhosis of the liver and is hospitalized. As is seen in the movie, the feds tailed her even while she was in this condition, planting drugs in her room and attempting to get her to name her dealer. She was handcuffed to her bed, and law enforcement kept a tight watch over her quarters, even as fans gathered outside ...
- Nitish Pahwa
Feb 26, 2021 · Yes, ‘The United States vs. Billie Holiday’ is based on a true story. The film follows one of the most defining parts of Billie Holiday’s life and career. Daniels sees Holiday as one of the people who kickstarted the Civil Rights Movement, although not many people are aware of her contribution.
Feb 25, 2021 · The seeds of a satisfying and illuminating anti-biopic are scattered through those scenes, but “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” proves unable to rescue its heroine from its own...
The United States vs. Billie Holiday is a 2021 American biographical drama film about singer Billie Holiday, based on the book Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs by Johann Hari.
Feb 19, 2021 · A feverish and fitfully compelling biopic that spreads over the last decade of Lady Day’s life, Lee Daniels ’ “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” frames the government’s war on the...
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Mar 4, 2021 · The United States vs. Billie Holiday falls into every formulaic trap of a Hollywood-sanctioned Black biopic. There’s the minstrelized white interlocutor mediating the story for us, posing as an interviewer as the trope demands.
