‘Michael’ turns the current wave of biopics into a full-scale show for the King of Pop
Michael Jackson’s impact on music is undeniable. The singer, who passed away prematurely in 2009, still holds the record for the best-selling album of all time – Thriller is estimated to have sold around 70 million copies worldwide. Thus, the first major biopic about his life, made with the involvement of the Jackson family, carried significant weight and responsibility: translating the grandeur of one of the biggest stars in music to the big screen while also portraying the moments of difficulty – and controversy – that marked his life. The film succeeds in scale; everything here feels like part of a grand “King of Pop” spectacle, even if it avoids most of its controversial subjects.
Biopics about major artists have become increasingly common – Bohemian Rhapsody, A Complete Unknown, and Judy are among the recent titles that have received recognition from the Academy. In Michael, we get a different structure compared to Judy, for example. While the latter focuses on a very specific period in Judy Garland’s life, placing her personal struggles at the forefront and her career in the background, the film about Michael Jackson returns to the roots of the genre, covering his life from childhood, with the formation of the Jackson 5, to his most popular eras as a solo artist. The focus here is almost entirely on the meteoric trajectory of the King of Pop’s career.
This intention is made clear within the first hour, as we are presented with a massive sequence of hits, with brief intervals for some development behind the scenes of the Jackson family dynamics. This decision could have been a major risk, but it turns out to be one of the film’s greatest strengths – both because the songs and the staging of these musical sequences are excellent, truly worthy of a Michael Jackson biopic, and because it reinforces the idea that the singer’s life was, indeed, built around his career. As the film progresses, this argument gains strength, with the story unfolding through key moments in his journey – whether in the creation process of Off the Wall, the album that propelled his solo career, or in the decisions surrounding his next release, Thriller, which gave us one of the most iconic music videos of all time.
Even for those who aren’t devoted fans of Michael Jackson, the film has an irresistible magnetism. Jaafar Jackson delivers a performance worthy of praise. As the artist’s nephew, the resemblance between the two is, at times, uncanny. He brings charisma and a deeply sensitive touch to Michael’s innocence and loneliness – two of the film’s most explored themes. The supporting cast is equally solid. Colman Domingo, as Joe Jackson, the family patriarch, is genuinely unsettling without ever veering into caricature – something rare in this kind of film nowadays. Nia Long and Jessica Sula, playing Michael’s mother and sister, also stand out: the former as one of the film’s emotional anchors of warmth and care, and the latter as a scene-stealer who, despite limited screen time, makes us want to know more about her character and her relationship with her siblings.
Michael is a lesson in how to craft a biopic that truly feels like a spectacle while celebrating its source material. So far, the film does not delve into the artist’s biggest controversies, but by the time the credits roll, we’re already curious to see how they plan to tackle them in the near future.
Review written by our cinema expert collaborator Guilherme Lorenzoni.