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Despite “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” chronicling the last few years of the legendary jazz singer’s life, as well as her battle with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and with substance use disorder, the film seems to have little empathy for Holiday as a human.

Biographical films usually offer the chance for audiences to get closer to larger-than-life historical figures. It allows us to see their humanity, if only through imagined and fictionalized conversations and interactions.

However, director Lee Daniels and Suzan-Lori Parks, the film’s screenwriter and a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, focus so much on Holiday’s encounters with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics that they don’t leave enough room to really grapple with the emotional and physical toll that the bureau’s persecution took on the musician.

The focus of the film is therefore centered around the Federal Bureau of Narcotics’ efforts to use narcotics charges to silence Holiday (Andra Day). The Federal Bureau of Narcotics assigns Jimmy Fletcher (Trevante Rhodes), a Black bureau agent, to tail Holiday, but he ends up getting closer to the singer than he anticipated. The audience isn’t afforded the same opportunity.

The film, streaming on Hulu, opens with a title card layered over a photograph of a lynch mob and their victim. It reads, “In 1937, a bill to finally ban the lynching of African-Americans was considered by the Senate,” and places the story’s context within the history of lynching in the U.S. This is significant because Holiday rose to fame with her song, “Strange Fruit,” a haunting account of the ubiquity of “Black bodies swingin’ in the Southern breeze.”

“The United States vs. Billie Holiday” doesn’t seem to justify its premise on the unsettling “Strange Fruit” and the social and political movement for civil rights that it invokes. Holiday’s time in prison was merely relegated to a quick montage, a missed opportunity to see her be in community with the people she sang “Strange Fruit” for.

Instead, the film gives off hints of the strong, Black woman trope without showing enough of Holiday’s vulnerabilities. There are numerous sequences where she’s shooting a needle into her arm, being arrested or suffering from some other tragedy, and then she rolls with the punches, bouncing back. Daniels and Parks don’t tap into the pain that particularly stems from being a Black woman in the U.S. with nuance.

Parks’ script also dances around the widely-known secret that Holiday had a romantic affair with actress Tallulah Bankhead (Natasha Lyonne). It’s a shame that there was not one intimate scene between the couple, especially considering the many rough sex scenes Holiday has with the men in her life.

In reality, Holiday and Bankhead may have had to be discreet about their relationship, but “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” could’ve put it on full display by putting that side of her private life on screen.

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However, Day does her best with the material given to her. It’s in scenes that take place on club stages during concerts that Day really shines. Not only does Day look like Holiday, she also channels her profound stage presence. In one such scene, Day is still, soulful and elegant as the camera pushes closer and closer into her face as she defiantly sings “Strange Fruit” in Carnegie Hall.

It’s another scene, though, where Holiday is dressed in a sparkly red matching set, dances freely on stage, interacts with her jazz player, Lester Young (Tyler James Williams), and vibes with the audience – eventually crowd surfing. This scene shows how Day truly imbues life into the legend.

In a way, Day’s performance as Holiday links the past to the present. Day’s sound is unmistakably R&B and soul with a dash of the blues, all music genres that have been influenced by Holiday’s innovations in jazz, blues and pop music.

This musical connection between Day and Holiday enhances the sentiment that the film is as much about back then as it is about today. In one scene, Holiday tells a white agent with the Federal Bureau of Narcotics that “your grandchildren will be singing my song.” If only it weren’t true.

Though the film’s message about the struggle for racial justice, and the slow pace at which it comes, resonates with the contemporary moment as the trial of the police officer who killed George Floyd starts, “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” doesn’t capture the contours and textures that shaped the end of Holiday’s life as a three-dimensional human being.

Published on March 10, 2021 at 10:52 pm

Contact Madison: mntyler@syr.edu