Ah, another day, another rags-to-riches biopic about childhood adversity transformed into adult triumph. Michael: the heartwarming tale of a traumatised musical prodigy who breaks free from the control of a tyrannical father to become a global icon, helping millions of troubled children along the way. Box office gold, surely.
Er, hang on. Aren’t biopics supposed to be true? Has the world gone stark raving mad? On what planet is a film in which Michael Jackson is portrayed unequivocally as a do-gooder helping kids in hospital anything other than wildly incendiary? And, rather, let’s say, misrepresentative.
Michael is the long-awaited and deeply controversial biopic of the late Michael Jackson, an extraordinary singer, songwriter and dancer who still holds the record for the bestselling album of all time (Thriller). And also a man who was accused multiple times – though never convicted – of the sexual abuse of children.
You’d be hard pressed to understand the complexity of the King of Pop from this film. Rather than a clear-eyed look at a complicated –albeit phenomenally important – cultural figure, Michael is a very clear attempt to rehabilitate the star, who died in 2009, aged 50, of a drug overdose. And with the singer’s estate as one of its producers, it’s hardly surprising. Unfortunately, it is enjoyable enough that it will probably be extremely successful, both in box office receipts and re-establishing Jackson as a misunderstood loner who just wanted to do nice things for kids with his well-earned cash.
Jaafar is Jackson’s real-life nephew – his singing voice and dance moves are mesmerising (Photo: Glen Wilson/Lionsgate)It would be easier to dismiss the film if it were bad, but it isn’t – just deeply disingenuous. The high quality is unsurprising since the film has impeccable credentials: directed by Antoine Fuqua, the guy behind Training Day, and written by John Logan, a three-time Oscar-nominated screenwriter whose credits include Gladiator and two Bond films. Michael also stars Jaafar Jackson, the singer’s nephew, as Jackson himself, and his singing voice (blended with his uncle’s original tracks) and dance moves are mesmerising.
Watching him moonwalk, toe stand, and warble “shamone”, you could easily believe you were watching Jackson in his heyday. Juliano Valdi is excellent as the highly pressured younger Michael during his days in the Jackson 5 and, unlike many of its biopic peers, the film also understands something important about pace. It has forward motion but isn’t just a bullet point list of key moments. You feel like you get to know the guy.
But you don’t, not really. Not only does the film fail to mention abuse even once (more on that in a bit), but it goes out of its way to present its subject as a great man, a philanthropist, a magnificent defender of children’s rights.
Yes, he’s a bit of an oddball, the film agrees, as it shows us Michael acquiring numerous pets including a snake, a giraffe and, of course, his chimp, Bubbles. But here’s why, it pleads. “They’re my friends,” Michael grins sadly, as his mother tells him that he has always been different, and we see his dad Joe (a brilliantly menacing Colman Domingo) belittle him (“big-nose”) while simultaneously relying on his talent to lift the family out of poverty.
When Michael sits chatting with kids in hospital, after his head is set on fire during the making of a Pepsi ad, and insists to his lawyer (Miles Teller) that any compensation money be donated to the burns unit, the message is clear: his heart is in the right place. No wonder he relates to kids: they don’t shame him like his father and all the stuff we’re not talking about, if true, must have been just an innocent mistake…
Michael Jackson with his pet chimp, Bubbles, in 1987 (Photo: Sankei Archive via Getty)So, let’s just recap the stuff we’re not talking about. In 1993, Jordan Chandler, then 13, accused Jackson of sexual abuse, and received a financial settlement (a clause was recently discovered in this settlement forbidding depiction of Chandler in any future movies, which forced script rewrites and reshoots on Michael). In 2005, 13-year-old Gavin Arvizo, a cancer survivor who met Jackson in hospital, accused him of abuse in a criminal trial. Jackson was acquitted.
Later, Wade Robson and James Safechuck also accused Jackson of childhood sexual assault, and spoke about it in the 2019 documentary Leaving Neverland, arguably the greatest dent of all in Jackson’s legacy. Robson said: “He was one of the kindest, most gentle, loving, caring people I knew… and he also sexually abused me for seven years.”
Throughout, it has never been denied that Jackson befriended and slept in the same bed overnight with young boys who were not his children, or that he had long, unusually close friendships with them that would make most people deeply uncomfortable. So, sure, innocent until proven guilty. But it’s still repellent to make a film so brazenly positioning this person as some kind of child saviour.
After watching the film, against my better judgement, I listened to the Dangerous album on the train home. It was as incredible as ever. Is that wrong? I’m not sure. But deciding whether to eschew an artist’s work forever because of their behaviour is an entirely different question from whether it’s right to make a film that purposely portrays said artist as an uncomplicatedly good person.
Who’s bad? Arguably, everyone involved in this film. It ends with a suggestion there will be sequels. I seriously hope not.
‘Michael’ is in cinemas from 22 April
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