It is difficult to convey exactly how famous Michael Jackson was in the 1980s, because our increasingly fragmented, online culture is no longer capable of producing fame of such scale or universal reach. But director Antoine Fuqua’s new biopic, Michael, succeeds in giving us at least a glimpse of an era when the King of Pop reigned supreme.
My own introduction to Jackson came in the early 2000s, through the short film Michael Jackson’s Ghosts (1996). Already immersed in my parents’ rock-and-roll records, I had never encountered such a seamless fusion of disparate musical genres, horror imagery, and theatrical spectacle. It was precisely that sweeping artistic vision that catapulted Jackson to such dizzying heights of acclaim, and it is this that Fuqua’s film captures best.
What Michael understands is that Jackson’s greatness was the product of tenacious discipline, imagination, and talent so glaring that it could command the admiration of Americans across the full gamut of demographic divides.
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The story begins with Michael Jackson as the 5-year-old frontman of the nascent Jackson 5, under the stern and exacting tutelage of his father, Joseph Jackson, played with such conviction by Colman Domingo that, not having known the man myself, I can only assume this is very nearly what he must have been like. Acting as both manager and musical director, Joseph Jackson makes J.K. Simmons in Whiplash (2014) look, by comparison, like my benevolent middle-school band teacher. Shaped by a bleak upbringing and years of backbreaking labor in the steel mills, he is presented not as a cartoon villain but as a severe and complicated patriarch.
“In this life, you’re either a winner or a loser,” he frequently tells his sons. “Nobody is going to give you anything in this life. You have to take it.” It is a harsh creed, but an enduringly recognizable one, and the film appreciably shows how such severity could be both formative and damaging.
There is seldom a word of praise from their father. Even after successful performances, the brothers are dragged straight back into rehearsal. In these early scenes, young Michael Jackson, played with infectious charm by Juliano Valdi, is already a natural showman and a remarkable vocal talent. Once the Jackson 5 signs with Motown, the demands only intensify, as the family’s fortunes come to depend ever more heavily on Michael Jackson’s singular gifts.
One of the film’s most effective observations is that this kind of greatness does not emerge without cost. Still a preteen, Michael Jackson has no childhood to speak of. No friends his own age, no real privacy, and no sense of ordinary boyhood, confined to rehearsal rooms and recording studios. Yet the film also makes clear that, for all the pain and tension, he never becomes severed from his family altogether. Even as he pushes against his father’s control, he remains deeply bound to those closest to him.
As the biopic traces Michael Jackson’s precipitous ascent to superstardom, Fuqua increasingly centers the story on self-determination. “Let your light shine,” his mother repeatedly tells him, and shine it does. In the film’s second act, the child prodigy grows into Jaafar Jackson, who vanishes into the role of his uncle with such uncanny precision that I found myself wondering whether some artificial intelligence sorcery had been involved. After a painful break with his father, who would have been content to keep him and his brothers touring soul and R&B material forever, Michael Jackson resolves to create his own music and shape his own style. That impulse toward artistic independence lies at the heart of the film and, in Fuqua’s telling, is what ultimately cements his legacy and makes him the biggest star in the world.
It was never merely a matter of songwriting or vocal ability. Michael Jackson revolutionized dance as surely as he transformed pop music, blending street styles, jazz, and the influence of classic performers such as Fred Astaire into something wholly his own. It is no easy feat to make men want to dance, and yet this is exactly what Jackson did. Everyone wanted to imitate him. Is there a more iconic piece of choreography in popular culture than the moonwalk or “Thriller”? Fuqua is especially effective in showing the star before the mirror, studying the movements of earlier performers and honing homage into innovation. If the film has one shortcoming, it is that I wish it had lingered longer on the creative process that gave rise to some of the most famous music and choreography ever performed.
Aside from its lively musical numbers, Michael is at its strongest when it presents Jackson’s success as deservedly earned. When he pushes for “Billie Jean” to break onto MTV (the first black artist to do so), he does so not through the language of entitlement or racial grievance, but on the strength of impossible talent, commercial appeal, and relentless hard work. In that sense, the film recalls a distinctly American belief that excellence, discipline, and conviction can still break barriers on merit. Jackson was proud to be a black artist, but he refused to be confined by racial categories. He did not want to be merely the bestselling black artist. He wanted to be the biggest artist in the world, and for a time, he was.
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I found myself smiling and tapping my foot through much of the film’s two-hour runtime as Fuqua guided us through the making of an American legend of singular scale, one that the culture is unlikely ever to produce again. Michael Jackson’s ambition, as this film presents it, was to bring people together through performance.
Michael is as much about the making of a star as it is about the memory of a more unified popular culture, one in which greatness could still command the admiration of the whole country, and a black artist, on the sheer strength of talent and force of will, could become an icon beloved by Americans of every race, creed, and persuasion.
Harry Khachatrian (@Harry1T6) is a film critic for the Washington Examiner. He is a software engineer, holds a master’s degree from the University of Toronto, and writes about wine at BetweenBottles.com.