A challenge that biography movies has is that a two hour space is never long enough to adequately explore the life story of anyone much less a person who has lived a million lives. The bio pics that work best are often the ones that take a small period of time as part of the person's story. The film Lincoln and the Broadway show turned future HBO movie Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill are examples of biographies that give you just a snapshot,of the life of their subject, but really allow you to get to know a part of his or her character. Unfortunately, the script for Bessie which is the story of Bessie Smith decides to take on the life story route, and it just doesn't have enough time totally pull it off.
Fortunately, Bessie has a lot of really talented people working on it. Dee Rees who made the excellent film Pariah does her best to make this more than a conventional bio pic and often she succeeds. Rees is a talented filmmaker who deserves more opportunities. There is one scene where Bessie played by Queen Latifah is playing in a juke joint while the Ku Kux Klan is mounting an attack outside. The two separate scenes meld together seamlessly. It is extremely well filmed and the story of that scene is well told.
Bessie is also fortunate to have an amazing cast. Obviously Queen Latifah is the captain of the ship as Bessie. She is particularly well suited for the role because of her musical background, and in a way she gives such a fine performance she almost makes it seem easy. Michael Kenneth Williams, formerly the great Omar of the Wire, gives pretty much the only full fledged performance of any of the major male characters in the movie. Williams is destined to be one of Hollywood's great character actors. Khandi Alexander plays Bessie's older sometimes abusive sister. No one plays steelyand cold while giving just a glimmer of warmth better than Alexander does. Finally, Mo'Nique once again proves that it is Hollywood's big loss for not being able or wanting to be able to figure out what to do with her as an actress. She plays Ma Rainey and though her screen time is limited, she owns every moment she is in the screen and makes you anticipate her return when she is gone.
There are several other characters in the movie but unfortunately due to time and script restrictions, none of them are very developed. It would have been nice to see the character who play's Bessie's female lover to be more full fledged especially since the character is actually a composite of several women in Bessie's life. These are generally small critiques. Due to fine performances and a passionate filmmaker the story of Bessie Smith gets its due!
7 out of 10
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