As befits the title, “Beauty” looks beautiful, even if much of what happens in this story of a black pop star signing a record deal will be ugly. Played by Gracie Marie Bradley, Beauty stands in front of a microphone in a recording studio. This close-up image will be repeated several times, challenging the expectations of the timeline by looping what will be with what is.
In this lilting, lyrical work, director Andrew Dosunmu and writer Lena Waithe mourn and tease Whitney Houston’s story. Think of “Beauty” as a sharp-edged elegy, one that touches on faith and finances, love and condemnation.
Giancarlo Esposito plays Beauty’s evil father and Niecy Nash is her vocally demanding mother. Sharon Stone leans into her Mephistophelian role as a record executive. “God showed off a little when he created her,” she tells TV talk show host Irv Merlin (James Urbaniak). Any doubts about the film’s interest in religious holiness and patriarchal atrocities are allayed in a scene where Father pits Beauty’s brothers, Abel (Kyle Bary) and Cain (Micheal Ward) against each other.
Like Irv’s name, other coy gestures suggest the proximity of Houston’s saga while the end of the biopic issues. Still, the film remains intriguing. Shall we hear Beauty sing? Will she and her romantic friend Jasmine (Aleyse Shannon) finally “go there”? When the two dance to the Force MD’s slow-jam gem “Tender Love,” it’s romance, not sex, close at hand. Rather than an evasion, this feels like respect: the filmmakers never acknowledged, honoring but not naming what the real star evoked here so clearly.
Beauty
Rated R for language and drug use. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. Watch on Netflix.