Review: “Whitney: Can I Be Me?” Portraits Fame’s Darker Edges

In Whitney: Can I Be Me, although Nick Broomfield and Rudi Dolezal successfully keep their subject in plain sight you get the sense there is a great deal more that they left unsaid, robbing us of any real insight.

Documentarian Nick Broomfield is revered amongst his peers for unbiased and hard hitting exposes. Everything from fabled grunge icon Kurt Cobain through to provincial UK sex workers have fallen under his gaze. In a career which spans decades Broomfield has been given access to and dissected the rich, famous and accidentally infamous without compunction. Which is why Whitney: Can I Be Me? is slightly disappointing in its lack of detail.

Although there is revealing backstage footage which follows Houston throughout her last tour very little is given away. Talking heads, concert film and personal moments between Whitney Houston, her then husband Bobby Brown and a select few are shown in snippets with a solemn voice-over in attendance. However for all the glitz and glamour Whitney: Can I Be Me? does nothing to penetrate the mystique of this very private person.

Only in fleeting glances through an open door prior to performance does anything like revelation occur. Just in that moment caught off guard we see a multi-million selling artist look truly vulnerable. Only then for a second do you see the veneer slip away as someone who is truly scared stares back at you. Everything else is window dressing. It is a heart breaking story all too common amongst the truly gifted who lose control of the thing which makes them exceptional. Bill Hicks once said that all a person needs to become an addict is the right friends, nowhere is that soundbite more relevant than here.

Married to an R n B star who captured the zeitgeist and was truly in ascendance both Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston made headlines. For someone not used to hard living she found the lifestyle an adjustment which then impacted on everything else. While Houston was busy changing cinema for black actors with The Bodyguard, Brown cashed in on her notoriety. His lack of tangible remorse is palpable throughout and that above all says much about the man. Beyond that though what this documentary truly delivers is a sense of that fame juggernaut which overwhelmed, weakened and finally destroyed an icon.

Documentaries in the main are delicate things which can all too easily step over into exploitation if not guided correctly. Although Broomfield successfully keeps his subject in plain sight you get the sense there is a great deal more that he left unsaid robbing us of any real insight.