I've got just the thing to bring you down.
What Happened Miss Simone?
I've gotten a little more into Nina Simone in the past year. She's such an interesting person, a life full of turmoil based on complicated relationships with her husband/manager (does that ever work out well?) and the civil rights movement. Her songs are undoubtedly central to that movement, and this doc does a pretty good job with her developing interest in the issues that the movement brought to national attention, in part thanks to songs like "Mississippi Goddamn." She was already dealing with her husband/manager overworking her, and after she became the "patron saint" of the civil rights movement she basically worked herself to the bone. Her daughter, interviewed extensively for the film, points to the stage as the only place where she might truly be happy, if only for a moment. It's sad, because she's obviously super talented and a person who feels deeply, and that seems like it quickly became both a gift and a curse.
The problem is, the movie isn't great at explaining exactly how all this stuff works. I know we got in a few arguments here about whether Amy (the Winehouse doc) was exploitative, but at least that film accomplishes what seems to be its goal. If this movie was supposed to answer the question it poses in the title, well, fission mailed. Around the halfway point things get hazy, and it's not on purpose as far as I can tell. It just feels like the doc runs out of steam. Maybe that's the form following the function as Nina herself becomes kind of unraveled. Maybe it's about seeing and feeling what happened to her. But if that's the case, generously, maybe it's also not the best choice. I came in wanting to know more about Nina Simone. I still do.
Also, I'm kind of tired of the old "keep the most famous song for the credits" thing in movies like this. It feels like there's a hole in the center of this movie named "Sinnerman" and then when they play it over the credits as if in a wink to the audience, saying, ha, you thought we forgot this one! But really you did forget this one. Imagine how much more powerful this song playing over the stuff about her husband might have been. Or maybe even just a full performance in the middle. Could have been, you know, movieish. Not this tacked on hunk of nothing.
Bleh. C.