Whitney Houston movie

I Wanna Dance With Somebody: This by-the-numbers film is saved from utter blandness by Naomie Ackie's strong, occasionally eccentric performance.

I Wanna Dance with Somebody plays by the rules of the TV movie to efficient, if scarcely groundbreaking, effect. The cuts to shots of beaming sports fans with hands on hearts may, in that latter sequence, be a bit icky for European viewers, but the sheer potency of the voice still knocks one back. Only a cloth-ear would deny the pop potency of records such as How Will I Know or I Wanna Dance with Somebody, but they are just not interesting in same way that Respect or (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman are interesting. [Bohemian Rhapsody](https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/bohemian-rhapsody-a-kind-of-magic-start-engraving-that-oscar-1.3672903), is, of course, forced to acknowledge her struggles with drugs. The film is at pains, in its later stages, to push back against accusations that Bobby Brown (Ashton Sanders), eventually Houston’s husband, was responsible for her drug use. Following some good-natured shenanigans that may or may or not have happened, the head of Arista records, Clive Davis (Stanley Tucci), is manoeuvred before Whitney and, stunned by The Voice, signs her without pause.