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The King of Pop's Not-So-Regal Biopic

A splashy new Michael Jackson biopic peels
back the layers of the complicated legend.

By Stephanie Zacharek in Time

f you knew nothing about Michael Jackson -- if you had no clue about his almost unfathomable gifts as an entertainer or his troubled legacy -- Antoine Fuqua's workmanlike biopic Michael would be a fine and satisfying movie. There's lots of triumph over adversity, and a few eureka moments showing very young performer learning to flex his formidable powers. The film ends on an up note, with Jackson -- played by Michael's nephew, Jaafar Jackson, doing an admirable job of channeling his uncle's charisma -- performing before an arena of adoring fans in London in 1988. It's not that any of these vignettes are inaccurate. It's just that they fall so short of the complete picture that they barely capture the essence of Michael Jackson: he was an entertainer who brought intense joy to others even as he could barely feel it himself.

The earliest scenes in Michael are the most exuberant, and the most affecting. It's wintertime in Gary, Ind., 1966. Tiny Michael, played by Juliano Valdi, gazes from the window of his family's small home, watching kids playing in the snow. His father Joseph (Colman Domingo, his features rendered indistinguishable by blobby prosthetics) barks at him to rejoin his brothers: the boys who would become the Jackson 5 are lined up like soldiers, ready to rehearse the performance their father has engineered for them. Young Michael has little confidence and goes through the motions of performance, not so much dancing as jiggling in place. Joseph berates him. The boys' mother Katherine (Nia Long) gazes sympathetically from the sidelines but doesn't dare speak up. Later, in response to some minor infraction, Joseph cracks his belt across little Michael's butt. It hurts -- probably a lot -- and Michael cries. These early scenes are unpleasant to watch. They're also the ones that feel the least burnished and most truthful.

The rest of Michael, which was written by John Logan, focuses largely on the fraught father-son dynamic, as if highlighting one elephant in the room will draw our attention away from another. The Jackson 5 become stars, but Michael, by age 10 arguably one of his era's great soul singers, is clearly the anchor. The film deals with his intense loneliness: Once he and his brothers earn some money, he starts buying outlandish pets: a snake, a llama, a giraffe, a chimp named Bubbles. He tells his mother, plaintively, that they're not pets, they're friends.

ll the while, young Michael strives to wriggle out from under his father's meaty thumb. When the Jacksons are signed to Motown Records, Michael astounds Berry Gordy (Larenz Tate) with his version of Smokey Robinson's "Who's Lovin' You." The sound -- it's Michael's voice we hear on the soundtrack -- resonates like an ancient missive of heartache, rather than a song emanating from a 10-year-old kid. Later, as a young man, he'll try with varying degrees of success to grab more freedom to make his solo album, Off the Wall, and later the megaseller Thriller. Joseph's sour, angry face is, paradoxically, the movie's guiding star: he controls the narrative as he controlled his son's life.

Did Jackson ever really free himself? The movie, made with the blessing of Jackson's estate, doesn't go anywhere near the allegations of sexual abuse later filed against the performer. (Reportedly, an earlier finale did but was reshot for legal reasons.) That's a no-fly zone for many diehard Jackson fans too: to even suggest that he was a troubled guy who brought trouble to others incites their wrath. But to deny Jackson's complexity only flattens his genius -- as well as his kindness and fragility -- into something manageable, explainable. In the end, Michael does the same. No one could survive being Michael Jackson -- not even Michael Jackson. In death, as in life, he deserves much better than family and friends who'll milk him for all he's worth.  

Flashback to 1977!

From People's March 14, 1977, issue.

THOUROUGHLY JOYOUS JULIE ANDREWS FINDS PEACE AT HOME WITH HER HUSBAND AND KIDS

ulie Andrews, 41, and screenwriter/director Blake Edwards, 54, were both anguishing in Hollywood in the mid-'60s. Their crises were similar, and they tried similar remedies: five-day-a-week therapy (seven years for him, five for her). "It is the only decision I have ever made, totally, 100 percent in my life," Andrews says. "It was also the wisest." Both of them were also dissolving first marriages, she from stage designer Tony Walton, he from former actress Patricia Walker. Of her decision to marry Edwards in 1969, Andrews said, "What the hell. It was just a piece of paper, and anyway it felt right." Andrews says she is happy to devote herself less to Hollywood and more to home. Their rented beach house in Malibu is alive with the sounds of two kids they adapted from Vietnam, Amy Leigh, 3, and Joanna Lynne, 2. "It's been wonderful to watch [them] blossom," Andrews says. She has a few plans: There is talk of a record, concerts and a return to Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, where she opened a nightclub act in 1976. Otherwise, she says, "I intend to cool it."

IN THE NEWS: MARCH 1977

Travelin' Jones: "I was even born feet first," says Grace Jones. "My mother says that's why I travel so much and move so fast."

Wedding: Peter Sellers, 51, tied the knot with actress Lynne Frederick, 22, in Paris. He was previously married to actresses Anne Howe and Britt Ekland and socialite Miranda Quarry.

Adaptation: The popular middle-grade novel series Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, which has sold 60 million copies since its debut in 1930, premiered its TV adaptation on ABC. Pamela Sue Martin, 24, played the titular detective.

STAR TRACKS

Feast Your Eyes  During her Silver Jubilee tour in the South Pacific, Queen Elizabeth (left) visited Tonga, where she knighted King Tupou IV and celebrated with a royal banquet.

Quite an Honor  Johnny Carson (right) accepted the Man of the Year award from Harvard's Hasty Pudding Theatricals, who called him "America's favorite bedroom companion."  

The Best of EXTRA!