Andra Day astonishes as Billie Holiday in Lee Daniels's maddeningly uneven biopic
Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post
Feb. 23, 2021
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1of3Andra Day and Kevin Hanchard in "The United States vs. Billie Holiday."Takashi Seida/Paramount PicturesShow MoreShow Less
2of3Andra Day, left, and Trevante Rhodes in "The United States vs. Billie Holiday."Takashi Seida/Paramount PicturesShow MoreShow Less
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Andra Day delivers an astonishing breakout performance as the complicated subject of "The United States vs. Billie Holiday," in a movie that often feels like it's unworthy of both the actress and the persona she adopts so seamlessly.
From the first moments of this maddeningly uneven film, Day channels her complicated, contradictory protagonist with closely observed detail. When a fey, feather-headed journalist asks her what it's like "to be a colored woman" during a 1957 interview, she replies with a half-purr, half-snarl: "Would you ask Doris Day that question?" A few moments later, in a flashback to a performance 10 years earlier at the nightclub Cafe Society, Day delivers a rendition of "All of Me" with the physical glamour and eccentric but impeccably modulated musicality that made Holiday a star.