The United States vs. Billie Holiday                           2 stars

There has been quite an abundance lately of films dealing with stories of racial injustice. The latest is Lee Daniels’ The United States vs. Billie Holiday that tells the life story of jazz icon, Billie Holiday, or at least part of it. It stars Andra Day as the legendary singer who was a star in the 1940’s and created a controversy by singing the song, “Strange Fruit”, so much so that the government was determined to get her to stop. I was familiar with the song and its connection to Holiday but was not aware of the story behind it. The song’s lyrics describe in graphic detail the scene of a lynching of black men, something people were aware of in the forties, but mostly would not speak of. The Narcotics Dept. of the FBI in the person of Harry Anslinger (Garrett Hedlund), federal agent is determined to make her stop singing it as the government is more interested in hiding the problem of the lynching of black men than it is in stopping them.  He does so by framing her with drug possession and he is aided by black agent Jimmie Fletcher (Trevante Rhodes of Moonlight) who infiltrates Holiday’s entourage. I found parts of the film hard to follow as some characters appeared for only a short while and others acted in such a way that I could not understand the motives for their actions. It is clear that few of those around the singer really cared for her and most were interested in their own gains. Fletcher is a hard one to understand as he is at first responsible for putting Holiday in jail and then has an affair with her. What a change that was! Two actors bringing comic relief are Miss Lawrence and Da’Vine Joy Randolph as part of Holiday’s entourage. The telling of her background was disjointed using a melodramatic way of showing her upbringing and her connection with a lynching. There is a comical interview scene with Leslie Jordan (whom Will & Grace fans will recognize instantly) as Reginald Lord Devine doing the questioning at a time late in Holiday’s career, inserted into the more chronological story. I felt it wasn’t done very effectively. We don’t get to hear the song Strange Fruit performed until well after the halfway point and though it is quite haunting it only shows up once. What we don’t get is any idea of how Holiday became so attached to it in the first place. Billie Holiday is known as the godmother of the civil rights movement before it was a movement and Andra Day does a remarkable performance portraying her. I just wish she was in a better movie about this historic icon.