Storyline
Billie Holiday spent much of her career being adored by fans. In the 1940's, the government targeted Holiday in a growing effort to racialize the war on drugs, ultimately aiming to stop her from singing her controversial ballad, "Strange Fruit."
Directors
Cast
Kwasi Songui, Kevin Hanchard, Natasha Lyonne, Garrett Hedlund, Adriane Lenox, Leslie Jordan, Joe Cobden, Nealla Gordon, Evan Ross, Alexander Bisping, Richard Jutras, Alain Goulem, Jonathan Higgins, Dana Gourrier, Sylvia Stewart, Len Blavatnik, Tristan D. Lalla, Ronda Louis-Jeune, Tyler James Williams, Warren 'Slim' Williams, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Erik LaRay Harvey, Dušan Dukić, Robert Alan Beuth, Rob Morgan, Melvin Gregg, Blake DeLong, Maxime Paradis, Jeff Corbett, Trevante Rhodes, Koumba Ball, Andra Day, Tone Bell, Randy Davison, Miss Lawrence, Ray Shell, Kate MacLellan, Letitia Brookes, Orville Thompson, Damian Joseph Quinn, Jono Townsend, Morgan Moore, Arlen John Bonnar, Furly Mac, Andrew Zadel, Don Anderson, Amanda Strawn, Charleine Charles, Daphné Archer, Anita Lee, Tony Chao, Linda Sauvé, Ramona Clyke, Laurent Beaudin, Alika Autran, Kim Feeney, Diana Carmen Ratycz, Marc Essertaize, Christopher Ricardo Price, Taryn Brown, Zuri Hawkins, Elizabeth Eveillard, Clauter Alexandre, Penande Estime, Elikya Tupula, Nefertari Zanyah Brewster-Griffith, Sarah Levesque
Trailer
Reviews
70
This is gripping stuff, to be sure, yet the movie, volatile as it is, lacks a full dramatic center and the momentum that would flow out of it.
63
It’s a bio-pic that keeps its brilliant, sultry, complicated subject at arm’s length.
63
Slant Magazine
The film finds its purpose most pointedly when it zeroes in on the unambiguous relationship between Holiday and “Strange Fruit.”
63
Even with its imperfections, “Billie Holiday” tells a needed story and along the way introduces a bright new Hollywood star to watch.
60
Day mesmerizes even when Lee Daniels' unwieldy bio-drama careens all over the map with stylistic inconsistency and narrative dysfunction, settling for episodic electricity in the absence of a robust connective thread. It's a mess, albeit an absorbing one, driven by a raw central performance of blistering indignation, both tough and vulnerable.
