Whitney

As a child of the 80s, I'm a fan of music from the 70's and the 90s. I mention that to say I was never a fan of Ms Houston's, but have always been fascinated with her as a person and a star, and to that ends the film served me well. The film focused on her life using family videos and news footage and, like my friends and me, shied away from her performances. (Two notable exceptions were her singing of America's National Anthem at the 1991 Super Bowl and a stirring rendition of 'I Will Always Love You' as the first performer in a post-apartheid South Africa.) The film is occasionally too long, trying to connect dots between her past and her drug problems -- a link I sometimes found tenuous -- but overall the movie did what it was meant to: offer us a behind the scenes look at a beautiful and talented young woman and the long, beguiling train wreck she engineered.