Seventeen years after his death, a biopic of Michael Jackson has had its world premiere. The film, titled simply 'Michael', stars Jaafar Jackson, the singer's real-life nephew, and is rated PG. It is now showing in cinemas.
A Herculean Task of Disbelief
Most movies require audiences to suspend their disbelief. The Michael Jackson biopic demands a herculean effort to do so. Sisyphus might actually be a more apt analogy, because the film asks us to ignore the unsavoury aspects of Jackson’s life over and over and over again.
Multiple scenes where an adult Jackson is obsessed with a page in a Peter Pan picture book that depicts Neverland are presumably meant to highlight his desire to never grow up. These overcooked moments read as wilfully oblivious to the singer’s infamous Neverland compound, which was the centre of a number of child sex abuse allegations, as chronicled in the disturbing 2019 documentary, Leaving Neverland.
And the bizarre choice to repeatedly and heroically depict Jackson at the bedside of sick kids in hospital, or befriending children with starstruck parents in toy stores, ignores multiple grooming allegations against the singer.
Director's Original Vision Altered
It’s fair to wonder just how different the finished movie is to the original vision of director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day), who reportedly planned the opening scene to be Jackson’s arrest at Neverland in 2003 on child molestation charges. The singer was acquitted, and his estate continues to deny any wrongdoing.
But conditions of a multimillion-dollar settlement with another alleged victim forced Fuqua to undertake expensive reshoots after the film was finished, changing the ending and removing any trace of abuse.
Well, except for the abuse inflicted on Jackson at the hands of his father, Joseph, played here by a scenery-chewing Colman Domingo. But even this is downplayed, which is no huge surprise given the Jackson family’s close involvement with the movie.
A Sanitised Portrait
And, like all musical biopics, licensing hit songs is usually accompanied by a tacit agreement to producing a sanitised portrait of a star, because alleged paedophilia isn’t great for album sales. As a result, Michael is the most superficial biopic we’ve seen in years, conveniently stopping before Jackson became Wacko Jacko. It’s so superficial, we don’t even get an explanation of how the iconic moonwalk came into existence.
That said, Jaafar Jackson does a solid job of impersonating his uncle, mastering the dance moves and childlike mannerisms. Why Bubbles the chimp gets so much screentime is, however, a mystery.
The concert scenes are great, which is lucky because they make up half the film, but a drawn-out performance sequence at the end well and truly wears out its welcome.
Michael Jackson was a singular talent with a deeply problematic life. This biopic does nothing to help us understand either.
