Who's Bad: MICHAEL

Basically no one involved in Michael wanted to make an honest story of Michael Jackson’s life. That’s not unusual for a biopic officially approved by a cautious estate. (It happened to Bob Marley and Freddie Mercury recently.) But the details of Jackson’s life are so darkly troubled that not even the emptiest hagiography turning a deliberate blind eye to the worst of his eccentricities and criminality can fully escape the gravitational pull of the freak show tragedy of his tabloid final decades. We simply know the story too well. And anyone paying attention knows its contradictions and complications are far more fascinating than an easy greatest hits skim can do justice. Here’s a movie that tells the story of a talented little boy whose abusive father makes into a song-and-dance star as part of a sibling band. As a young adult he goes solo and becomes a superstar while awkwardly, eventually, extricating his own ambition from his family ties. Along the way he makes some of the catchiest, grooviest, and most successful, pop music of the 20th century. That’s all undeniably true. But here’s also a movie with Peter Pan fantasies, predatory adults, a backyard zoo, plastic surgery, pain medication, and a pet chimpanzee. It has a scene where the emotionally stunted Jackson makes his security guard take him to a toy store and, while waiting in line, is interrupted by a starstruck mother who makes her reluctant young son get an autograph. And this is the version that isn’t going to get into his psychological problems or abuse allegations? It’s like someone left in all the signifiers while leaving out what they signified. It’s a glossy, up-tempo celebration ominously pointing at the tragedy that’s on the cutting room floor. 

Director Antoine Fuqua directs a capable, anonymous production that’s supposed to be nonstop music and recreations of iconic moments from concerts and music videos. That’s all faithfully recreated here. Jackson is played by his nephew Jaafar, who has the look and the moves with an eerie impression of the fluttery high speaking voice and belting singing tone. The supporting cast, from the rest of the Jackson 5 to Motown’s Berry Gordy and beyond, are completely anonymous. (You can’t even tell the brothers apart, while Colman Domingo’s father figure is a vivid, cartoonish, presence.) There’s little attempt to make Jackson himself a character; he’s just a fragile boy pushed along by the march of time. Forget about interrogating a scene like when he, a grown man, grumbles that his adult siblings would rather go have sex with their girlfriends than stay home and play Twister with him. He’s just too pure. (Sure.) The movie is entirely and naively shallow surface. It has the notes. It has the rhythm. It has the dances. It has the costumes. But all those are so empty that they can’t stop the oddities and ugly implications from fighting their way up from beneath the glossy surface. We can’t forget who we’re watching, and where it’s all headed, even as the movie is convinced it isn’t telling that story. It ends on a high note—Jackson in 1988 freed at last from his father’s grasp, on a solo tour singing a big hit—and this text: “His Story Continues.” Given where it’s headed, that feels like a threat.