The Michael Jackson movie tells you exactly what you want to hear

What are we waiting for when we buy a ticket to a story about a pop idol? A psychological dissection of a genius? An honest conversation about the price of fame? Or do we just long to sit in the dark for two hours, shaking our feet to the beat of songs we used to dance to at school discos?

Over the past seven years, sometime since Bohemian Rhapsody grossed its billion at the box office, the rules of the game have become clear. A successful biopic is not a movie. It is the perfect mechanism for pumping up streaming and cementing a legacy. Rights holders need to sell old catalogs to new generations. And relatives of deceased stars need to maintain the illusion of sanctity, otherwise they will simply take away the rights to the songs.

And here we have “Michael” – the long-awaited biopic about Jackson. And it is, perhaps, the absolute apogee of the “cinema as a marketing tool” format.

The elephant that was not allowed in the living room

Michael Jackson was more than just a great entertainer. He was one of the most complex, bizarre phenomena in pop culture. A workaholic obsessed with fame, a child who never had a childhood, a living Rorschach test on race and sexuality. And a man who was accused of pedophilia and other blood-curdling things for years.

Well, in the movie “Michael” there's nothing about it.

All those scandals, trials and accusations that defined the last decades of his life (and for many became synonymous with his name forever) have simply been erased with an eraser. It is said that initially a long, somber version was filmed that touched on these topics. But then the Jackson family lawyers remembered that the agreement with his first accuser, Jordan Chandler, prohibits both parties from publicly discussing the details.

Instead, the filmmakers decided to end the film on a triumphant note from the Thriller era. It's a bit like the decision to end the Titanic captain's biography at the moment he joyfully climbs onto the bridge and looks at the sun. If you suddenly flew in from another planet and didn't know how it all ended, you'd think that Michael was going to live a peaceful old age on an alpaca ranch.

Family matters

To understand how contrived this movie is, just look at the credits. Some of the relatives acted as producers and happily gave their approval (for example, sons Prince and Blanket). Others, like daughter Paris or sister Janet, demonstratively distanced themselves.

What remains on the screen is a kind of expensive video eulogy. There is not much plot as such, the screen time is filled with studio sessions and montages of roaring stadiums. Michael's nephew, Jafar Jackson, copies his uncle very carefully. He gives the right movements, the right vocal sighs, but, of course, it is impossible to catch that magnetic, almost otherworldly energy of the real Michael.

The real revelation is a 12-year-old boy named Giuliano Valdi, who plays young Jackson. He somehow miraculously conveys this eerie state of an extremely gifted child who is beginning to understand that talent comes at the cost of his own freedom and sanity.

All the conflict in the film, all the darkness and the reasons for Michael’s future breakdowns are hung on one convenient scapegoat – his father Joseph (Colman Domingo). Yes, Joseph was a tyrant. The film pokes us right in the nose: here his father tells him “you’re either a winner or a loser” (yeah, that’s why he’s so messed up in the sales rankings!), and here his father calls him “a big nose” (well, you know where that will lead in the plastic surgeon’s office). It’s convenient – to blame all the demons on the strict dad from Gary, Indiana, who just wanted to pull his family out of poverty.

But the funniest thing about this movie is the figure of the savior. Do you know who helps Michael escape from his parents' control? Lawyer John Branca. Who, surprisingly, is now the co-executor of Jackson's estate. That is, the man literally produced a film in which he presented himself as a knight in shining armor from the legal profession. When an actor with a serious face utters lines along the lines of: “Michael, you need to record some killer demos,” you want to rub your eyes a little from this vanity fair.

Crowd magic

Does Michael have an inner life outside of music? We are shown reading Peter Pan, interacting with animals (“They’re not pets, they’re my friends!”) and giving toys to sick children. He is not a living person with contradictions here, but a holy martyr of pop music. The story is as flat as plywood.

But here I have to take a step back and admit one thing. Watching a movie like this in a half-empty press room, skeptically sipping coffee, is one thing. But when it comes out in wide release… In a hall full of fans, when the bass of Billie Jean hits the speakers, people will sing along, cry and dance in the aisles. I used to cringe at the script for Bohemian Rhapsody, until I saw how ordinary viewers left the hall absolutely happy, and then for weeks they would play Queen on their headphones.

Before the credits roll, the screen reads, “The story continues.” The producers seem to be hinting at a sequel. It sounds like a bad joke. Making a sequel would mean showing courtrooms, paranoia, drug addiction, and a finale with a cardiac arrest in 2009. Who would buy popcorn for a screening like that?

I don't know how twenty-somethings perceive Jackson. To them, he's a figure from the past whose songs are still played on Halloween. They live in a world where idols are “cancelled” for one bad tweet, and the accusations of 1993, which seemed unthinkable then, are now perceived as part of the usual information noise.

This film will not explain anything to them. “Michael” is not a lie, but it is certainly not the truth either. It is a sterile, comfortable semi-darkness. And, perhaps, we will have to decide for ourselves whether simply good music is enough for us to not ask unnecessary questions.

Subscribe to UkrMedia on Telegram.

⚡ Readers' Pulse

Are you for the perfect legend or the inconvenient truth in cinema?

0 people have already voted. Join the discussion.

👇 Click on one of the options below

👑 Legend above all ⚖️ Truth without censorship 🧐 I have my own opinion

📊 Mind map

👑 Legend above all 0% ⚖️ Truth without censorship 0% 🧐 I have my own opinion 0% 💡