Michael

GoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★

Rated: MA15+

Directed by: Antoine Fugua

Written by: John Logan

Produced by: Graham King, p.g.a, John Braca, John McClain

Starring: Jafaar Jackson, Nia Long, Juliano Valdi, Keilyn Durrel Jones, Laura Harrier with Miles Teller and Colman Domingo.

‘You’re either a winner or a loser.’

Gary, Indiana, 1966.

Kids are playing in the snow.  Except Michael (Juliano Valdi).

It’s a scene that sets the tone of the film.

Michael is a story of Michael Jackson’s rise to fame.  He tells himself, ‘You’re confident, you’re a star, you’re the greatest of all time.’

And that’s what he becomes, selling 780 million albums, because of, and in spite of his father, Joseph (Colman Domingo).

That’s what his children call him; The Jackson 5 kids call their father, Joseph because he’s not a father; he’s a manager.  He’s the man who drives, goads, Michael and his siblings to work: to record, to perform, to sing while Michael squeezes his childhood in between until his only friends are his pets, ‘It’s OK Bobo,’ he tells his pet monkey, Bubbles. ‘You’re safe now.’

It’s jarring to see this softly spoken man who’s still a child to then become a superstar.

When the film begins with Michael on stage, hearing the sound, the hallmark, Ee hee.  Owww!  I lamented, thinking it a pity Michael’s no longer alive to see his fame on the big screen.  The closest we get is nephew, Jafaar Jackson playing the lead as the adult Michael, mimicking his dance moves and performance, which is a thoughtful tribute, but leaving me wanting to see the man himself there, up on stage.

Instead, Michael is a sad film, made to evoke sympathy. I started cringing, waiting for the next bad thing to happen.  The next argument from the tyrannical father, the behaviour reportedly based on the truth of Micheal’s relationship with Joe Jackson:

Joe Jackson was one of the most monstrous fathers in pop | Michael Jackson | The Guardian

There’s a focus on the father-son relationship, with the linear progression of Michael’s career through the years, from: the child prodigy in 1966, signing with Motown Records in 1968, then the obvious success in 1971 – nothing shows you’ve made it like peacocks roaming a property, then giraffes, lamas and then a beloved pet monkey.

Yet, for all the bizarre of his life, the film felt dry, and the character, Michael, flat, like a swing between fear and the highlight of seeing Michael and The Jackson 5 on stage.

And that’s sad as well, because seeing Michael forced to be a performer at the cost of his childhood is again something revisited while watching in the audience because it’s strange seeing the change in tone from the superstar to the stunted child, like the sadness of Michael’s lost childhood that haunted his adulthood is now haunting his biopic.

‘You ain’t like everyone else,’ his father tells him.

There’s this door opening to the mystery of Michael.  He says, ‘I wanna be mysterious.’

So with the, It continues, strategy of the film, I’m not sure I want the veil to be lifted.

It all feels unbelievable and also another abuse not wanting to see the private Michael, the flat stunted Michael; in the end, I just wanted to enjoy seeing the charismatic Michael, on stage.

Michael