The United States vs. Billie Holiday

Doesn’t succeed on any level. Unless it wants to be boring and annoying.

Don't get the comparisons calling this Oscar bait, its Daytime Emmy's bait at best. Andra Day gives an amazing performances, but an amateur cliché filled script is combined with the most boring, made for tv looking direction. A real waste of a talented performance and a Holiday's great life story.

When Billie Holiday sings and her band plays, something changes in the room, something happens, whether you're a fan or not, it's undeniable. Nothing in this flacid, bland, overproduced instagramish rendition evokes anything at all. Andra Day misses the mark on the magic, I felt like I was watching Rihanna doing a so-so Holiday-impression. The music production is completely out of place; dull, way too modern sounding. The focus on the love story is ridiculous.

(LADY FUCKS THE BLUES)

People have been whiffing on Billie since 1956.

How do you pull no punches but pull them all back at the same time?

Nothing about this crap is good. Totally unwatchable.

Andra Day is good. Rest of the movie is pretty forgettable

1879

Can we please let someone else besides Lee Daniels headline black biopics? Audra Day's performance was let down by the script and editing (and so many unnecessary sex scenes). Rhodes looked like a knockoff Michael B. Jordan. I'm still not sure why the feds cared so much about Holiday or why it would be taboo to sing about lynchings in the South---didn't the Klan want to publicize it and spread fear? Or was it only taboo in polite society? Fav scene: drug journey back into Holiday's memories.

Yes the script is messy, but it doesn't prevent Andra Day's performance from shining through. Definitely worth a watch

Given Day's performance, I wanted to like this, but I didn't get much more than "Hey, that poor junkie could sure sing" from this.

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Good lead performance, but the directing and editing are quite awkward, as are the numerous historical inaccuracies.

Andra Day deserves an Oscar. Just that.

Scattershot portrait of Holliday tells a confused account of her battles with the Government (and everyone else around her) but because Daniels won't commit to either an abstraction of her struggles (given her and most of those around her spend most of the film in a drugged out haze this might have been a more effective approach) or employ a more gritty realistic approach, the viewer is also left struggling to get a grip on the story, making Day's outstanding performance largely redundant.

Andra Day (a YouTube sensation, I don't remember her albums doing that great) is my surprise pick for the leading actress Oscar if the Academy suddenly gets cold feet for Frances McDormand (I don't think it will) but the storyline of this one is such a mess..... Who cares about the snitch/traitor/cop figure in these biopics!! Judas and the Black Messiah has the same problem! We really don't care about the character development of the (fictional) FBI agent/snitch, just give us a life story!

If you can have a film "based on a true story" surely you can have "based on a real person" too? Firstly, let me say that this was tour de force by Day: her performance is truly amazing. I am not sure if her singing was like Holiday, but it was terrific in this film. That said, this was NOT a biography of Holiday; the story is based on supposition, a few hints from various documents, and Daniels imagination. Billie Holiday was a tragic figure, but this film doesn't cast any new light on her.