They've made trite and meaningless such things as the child rape, indentured servitude in a Harlem whorehouse and an addiction to drugs that eventually contributed to Lady Day's death at age 44. Furie, the director and the three people credited with the screenplay, cannot use the basic truth of their facts as a defense of the film, although the facts have been generalized to protect the innocent (and the people who wouldn't give releases to the producers).
The former lead singer of the Supremes is on-screen from start to finish, which is to say almost endlessly, but her only apparent limitations are those imposed on her by a screenplay and direction seemingly designed to turn a legitimate legend into a whopper of a cliché.Sidney J. "Lady Sings the Blues," the first of what threatens to be a series of so-called entertainments based on the life and hard times of the late, truly great Billie Holiday, poses a tough question: How is it possible for a movie that is otherwise so dreadful to contain such a singularly attractive performance in the title role?It's not as if Diana Ross floats above the film, always remaining somehow disconnected from it, in that superior way that some actors affect when they find themselves in the vicinity of garbage.
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