The new documentary on Whitney Houston, “Whitney,” begins with the voice of the late pop star recounting a recurring nightmare. In this dream, Houston is running from the devil. As exhausted as she becomes from this chase, Houston tells us, she keeps going. She can’t let it catch her.
This opening scene foreshadows that the film, directed by Kevin Macdonald, is far from a celebratory portrait of the “How Will I Know” singer. It’s a sad one that shows how drug and alcohol addiction poisoned — and ultimately killed — one of the greatest vocalists in contemporary pop history.
At its core, “Whitney” is a who- (or what-) dunit, a psychoanalytic film that includes testimony from some of Houston’s closest friends and family members of how such a tragic event could have come to pass. As the viewer witnesses, it wasn’t a single factor that led to Houston dying from a drug-induced drowning in a bathtub in the Beverly Hilton in 2012. It was a confluence of reasons, a discussion of which could help others avoid a similar untimely end.
[For more on this story by Daniel Reynolds, go to https://www.healthline.com/hea...tons-story-matters#2]
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