Biographical motion pictures are inescapable in a business that leans on the familiar or easily identified to exploit a built-in audience. Widely known these days as biopics, they come in many forms — covering historical figures, newsworthy or idiosyncratic people from recent times, and more often than not, stars and significant players from the film, TV, and music industries. The latest notable biopics to arrive in theaters are Michael, purporting to tell the story of the late pop-music wunderkind Michael Jackson, and I Swear, about the struggles of a U.K. man with Tourette’s syndrome who became an advocate for others with the affliction. Those are two mightily dissimilar subjects, and the movies about them reflect those differences in tone, approach, and quality.
‘Michael’
From a commercial standpoint, musicians — alive or deceased — are particularly enticing for any producer or studio interested in making a biopic. A soundtrack packed with hit records is a no-brainer for marketing and ancillary revenue. And when a performer is as internationally popular and iconic as an Elton John or Freddie Mercury and has to surmount obstacles to achieve stardom, it’s only smart to leverage all of that for the screen. We had a well-received dramatization of singer-songwriter-pianist John’s path to stardom in Rocket Man and an equally lauded look at Mercury’s odyssey as front man of the rock band Queen in Bohemian Rhapsody. Now, Michael Jackson’s journey — at least some of it, from childhood focal point of the popular family R&B group the Jackson 5 to world-renowned multiplatinum solo artist — is on display in Michael.
Highly anticipated by his legion of fans, Michael was directed by Antoine Fuqua, skilled at overseeing gritty, action-fueled dramas such as Training Day and The Equalizer and documentaries including the blues music tribute Lightning in a Bottle and the biography What’s My Name: Muhammad Ali. The screenplay for Michael was written by Oscar-nominee John Logan, who scripted the prestige movies Gladiator, The Aviator, and Skyfall, among others. With that level of talent behind the lens and the freedom to draw on the self-proclaimed King of Pop’s stellar discography for a soundtrack, expectations for Michael were lofty, especially considering the turbulent nature of the entertainer’s life, tailor-made for dramatization.
There was the mental and physical punishment Michael endured at the hands of his father, Joe, who managed the Jackson 5 in tyrannical fashion. Later in his career, Michael chose to undergo a series of elective plastic surgeries, and he suffered burns while shooting an ad for Pepsi. Those circumstances are somewhat addressed in Michael. He was also dogged by accusations of pedophilia up until his tragic death in 2009 at the age of 50 due to a physician-administered drug overdose. But the movie stops around before getting to the child sexual-abuse scandal, his two marriages (one to Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis), and the birth of his three children. Is it sanitizing Michael? Yes, to an extent, and because of that and level of quality expected from Fuqua and Logan, it’s disappointing as a biography.
Colman Domingo makes the most as father Joe, who enriches the family but robs the boys, and Michael in particular, of anything resembling a normal childhood.
To its credit, Michael is bolstered by some exceptional performances, led by Michael’s nephew Jaafar Jackson who is magnetic, sensitive, and completely believable in the crucial role of his uncle, nailing Jacko’s naïveté and renowned choreography. Jaafar is preceded on screen by the impressive child actor Juliano Valdi, playing Michael as the spunky little guy, singing lead vocals and dancing like a seasoned showman in the Jackson 5. The dynamic Colman Domingo comes off as obsessive, domineering, and heedlessly cruel in his portrayal of Joe, the father from hell who pushes Michael and his brothers Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, and Marlon into show biz, resulting in a record deal with Motown and fame. Domingo makes the most of his villainous turn, as Joe enriches the family but robs the boys, and Michael in particular, of anything resembling a normal childhood. And Nia Long brings warmth to her scenes as the Jackson matriarch Katherine — a kindly, reserved mother hen who tries to protect Michael from the wrath of Joe as best as she can.
It can’t be easy to encapsulate the entirety of a prodigious, unique artist in a two-hour movie. That task is made even harder here, because certain members of the Jackson clan were producers of Michael, as was John Branca, the lawyer who served as Michael’s manager when he went solo, wresting him from Joe’s grip. (Branca is played by Miles Teller as a white knight coming to his client’s rescue.) They were surely invested in painting a sympathetic picture of Michael — and themselves. Meanwhile, three of the Jackson siblings — oldest sister Rebbie, little brother Randy, and youngest sister Janet — are conspicuously absent and unmentioned throughout Michael. All three missing offspring had careers in music — Rebbie as a singer with four albums, Randy joining the Jacksons after they dropped the “5,” and Janet recording and touring as a best-selling, Grammy-winning vocalist and songwriter who eventually landed in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Apparently, they did not want to be a part of Michael, and that undermines the verity of the enterprise.
It’s understandable that certain incidents would be recalibrated or reimagined for dramatic purposes or, as is the case with Michael’s acting debut as the Scarecrow in the 1978 movie musical The Wiz, ignored because of time constraints. Meanwhile, the martinet behavior of the late Joe Jackson was fair game in Michael, as far as the Jacksons on the production side were concerned. Despite all that the movie leaves out or glosses over, we do see Michael freeing himself from his father’s control, visiting sick kids in the hospital, and doting on Bubbles the chimp and the rest of his menagerie of exotic pets at the family compound in Encino with childlike glee that seems like a function of arrested development.
And the hits keep coming, starting with the Jackson 5’s singles and moving on to chart-topping tracks from Michael’s massively popular albums. The songs are visualized here in recording sessions and concerts that are expertly reproduced by Fuqua and his crew. And really, a loveable Michael and a parade of his best-known songs make for an ideal jukebox-musical experience for his devotees. If Michael is a movie that fails to meet certain standards of storytelling by its omissions, it’s a glitzy crowd-pleaser, a cinematic puff piece that glorifies Michael Jackson’s talent and paints him in a saintly way. It ends with him on tour to promote his 1987 album Bad. As Jaafar-as-Michael is greeted by a stadium filled with cheering multitudes, a title card appears. It reads “His Story Continues,” unencumbered by the darkness of what would come.
Michael is currently playing in theaters.
‘I Swear’
Written and directed by Kirk Jones, I Swear is worlds away from Michael. In the quirky, heartwarming tradition of British movies about real-life misfits and underdogs that find success against the odds, this is a chronicle of John Davidson who struggled with Tourette’s syndrome since his teens, was humiliated by schoolmates in his Scottish hometown, and would become an advocate for those with the condition. The situation and outcome suggest that I Swear could descend into mawkishness, but it’s not saccharine in the least. In fact, it’s often daunting due to the nature of the topic, the plight of its young protagonist, and the uncomfortable interpersonal relations that Tourette’s engenders.
The core strength of I Swear is actor Robert Aramayo as Davidson whose struggle to fit in is touching. Davidson’s mom, played by the excellent Shirley Henderson, is so bewildered by her son’s plight that she eventually shuns him. Thankfully, he finds support in the form of Dottie (Maxine Peake), the mother of his one good friend. Dottie not only invites Davidson to move in with her and her family, she helps him manage his Tourette’s and introduces him to the local community-center caretaker (Peter Mullan) who offers him a job. Aramayo delivers an astonishing and inspiring turn that takes Davidson from a battered and besieged youth with little hope to an activist honored for his educational efforts by Queen Elizabeth II in 2019. By the end of I Swear, the triumph of Davidson’s campaign to bring attention to Tourette’s syndrome and humanize those who wrestle with it is genuinely uplifting.
I Swear is currently playing in select theaters.
