REVIEW: 'Michael' is a nostalgia-powered tribute to the King of Pop
When one thinks of iconic musical movie moments, John Travolta’s in Saturday Night Fever surely ranks somewhere near the top. Even if you’ve never seen the film, the image of Travolta in a white suit, with his arm raised on the dance floor remains an indelible, unforgettable artifact of 1970s pop culture. It’s so iconic, in fact, that most people completely block out that Travolta’s dance partner and co-star Karen Lynn Gorney is standing right next to him, rendered completely irrelevant in one of the most memorable images of the 20th century. To latter-day Michael Jackson fans, this is pretty much what four of the Jackson 5 look like standing next to their brother Michael, and the latest biopic, from director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, The Equalizer), does little to correct this notion: When the King of Pop took to the stage, it was damn near impossible to look away.
Michael begins in Gary Indiana, where young Michael Jackson (Juliano Krue Valdi) is practicing with his brothers to become the Jackson 5. Pushed by their father, Joseph (Colman Domingo, Fear the Walking Dead), to elevate the family from poverty, the young musicians perform in small venues until their efforts lead to their being signed by Motown Records. With Michael as their breakout star, the family moves to California, where Joseph pushes the young musicians harder than ever. But when Michael (now played by Jackson’s real-life nephew, Jaafar) decides that he wants to embark on a solo career with Epic Records, it leads to a series of events that will shape pop music for decades to come.
Going in, we knew Michael was never going to be a documentary, as the involvement of Jackson’s family, estate, and Bohemian Rhapsody (2018) producer Graham King, all but guaranteed an avoidance of the darker elements of the performer’s life. Like Rhapsody, this is a celebrity biography presented as modern myth, with alterations to the factual record smoothed over by Easter Eggs and a soundtrack of some of the greatest pop songs of all time. Thankfully, the script by John Logan (Gladiator, Skyfall, Star Trek Nemesis) tempers the reverence with pathos, presenting us with a complicated (if not-quite-three-dimensional) portrait of a man raised to obey his father before hard-won stardom afforded him a way out.
While Fuqua’s presentation of Michael’s milestones take on a polished, almost-dreamlike quality, it’s not as overtly sanitized as it could have been, particularly with regard to Domingo’s infamous Jackson patriarch serving as the film’s de facto antagonist. Indeed, what we lack in character development for the rest of the Jackson family is made up for, somewhat, by Domingo’s depiction of their father’s overbearing self-importance. From Indiana to L.A., we witness how Joseph’s ambitions and ruthless nature fracture his relationship with his progeny, particularly when it came to Michael’s pleas for a solo career.
As the teen-to-adult Michael, Jaafar is a revelation, channeling his Uncle’s essence in one showstopping number after another. From the instantly-recognizable (speaking) voice and physicality, to the assortment of noses he goes through, Jaafar serves as a convincing facsimile; charming and child-like offstage, focused and precise the moment he has a microphone in-hand. When Jamaal gets into gear during the Motown 25 and Thriller sequences, it almost feels like time travel is real (also, if we had a dollar for every time Mike Myers played a dubious record executive in a deceased musician’s prestige biopic, we’d have two dollars, but it’s weird that it happened twice). Miles Teller (Whiplash, Top Gun Maverick) is here, too, as Michael’s manager, John Branca, but this is Domingo and Jackon’s movie through and through.
Made by people who loved him, Michael is a deliberate snapshot of a very specific period in Jackson’s career, one that ends shortly before the scandals that would cloud his later years. While this has raised eyebrows, it stops short of denying that said events ever occurred, leaving the door open for future filmmakers to pick up the slack. Consequently, in focusing the story Fuqua and Logan did choose to tell, Michael never feels like we’re watching a checklist lifted from Jackson’s Wikipedia page, a la Bob Marley: One Love, or, worse, forcing too much story into too few minutes (Rhapsody’s cramming of Mercury’s HIV diagnosis and parental reconciliation into literally five minutes before Live Aid ’85 will never not be hilarious).
All things considered, Michael is a glossy, nostalgia-powered character study of Michael Jackson the performer, punctuated by some brilliantly realized recreations of iconic appearances and music videos. Someday, when the definitive film about Michael Jackson the person is made, we will all be forced to contend with just how far reality split from Fuqua’s ideal.
And who knows, maybe by then, someone will have something to say about Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, and Marlon.
Watch the trailer below.
Disclaimer: PhilSTAR L!fe attended the Philippine premiere of Michael, courtesy of Universal Pictures Philippines.