While the love between Crawford and Houston is real, disapproval from Whitney’s family, particularly her father, takes a toll on their relationship. The two develop a deep friendship, which takes a romantic turn and leads to them moving in together. In the film, one of Houston’s most important relationships begins when she meets Robyn Crawford (played by Nafessa Williams) at a community center as a high school student. Below, we’ve done a fact check of some of the major points of I Wanna Dance With Somebody. That’s not to say that the film doesn’t take some creative liberties, however.

This may be due in part to the involvement of Clive Davis, the record producer and Whitney’s mentor, who served as an executive producer on the film, with the blessing of Pat Houston, her sister-in-law and the administrator of her estate. While other projects about Houston have had a morbid, sometimes exploitative fascination with the struggles and tragedy of her life, the film takes care with the story of Whitney (Naomi Ackie), imbuing her life both on and off the stage with nuance in an effort to offer an authentic re-telling. Her undeniable gift and glittering career catapulted her to fame, but it’s been the details of her personal life-her complicated relationship with her parents, her sexuality, her forays into marriage and parenthood, her struggles with substance abuse-that have been the focus of the many narratives, documentaries, and series about the six-time Grammy winner.īoth Houston’s outsized career and her complex interior life take center stage in Kasi Lemmons’ I Wanna Dance With Somebody, a biopic about the singer which releases on Dec. In the years since her death in 2012, the life and legacy of Whitney Houston have invoked an almost obsessive curiosity about the real person behind the larger-than-life persona of one of the world’s most talented musical artists.

Intimate relations movie summary