Review: HBO's 'Bessie,' Directed By Dee Rees, Starring Queen Latifah, Mo'Nique, & More

The blues is a deceptively complex musical genre. It’s one where heartbreak and sorrow can be uplifting at the same time, and where the artist and audience find familiar ground in everyday struggles. Thus, it’s also the musical genre that’s the hardest to capture with real authenticity. No one understands the blues until they’ve had it themselves, and so, a movie about blues legend Bessie Smith comes loaded with the double task of telling her life story, while also infusing it with that intangible sensation of the blues. Unfortunately, “Bessie” is a mostly one-dimensional look at a complex woman that tends to favor sensation over substance. READ MORE: Watch The First Teaser Trailer For 'Bessie' With Queen Latifah Hopping from one incident to another, with brief interludes to repetitive childhood flashbacks that ultimately do little to add to the drama, the story kicks off in 1913 as Bessie Smith (Queen Latifah) dreams of singing stardom, but lacks a presence or voice of her own. One...