Singer Tina Turner rises to stardom while mustering the courage to break free from her abusive husband Ike.
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CinemaSerf
7
By CinemaSerf
Andrea Bassett provides quite a compelling interpretation of the early life of Tina Turner here and Laurence Fishburne is also on good form as the brutish Ike. Born Annie Mae Bullock, she grows up in a community where singing is important and where her voice helps her to stand out. Pretty swiftly she attracts the notice of local band leader Ike Turner who gives her a start fronting his music before she becomes his wife and a mother. Success begins to follow but as that happens he turns into a monster. She is beaten regularly and feels more and more intimidated and fearful within her own marriage. Her society just wasn't geared up for a woman to leave her husband, however violent, and so with their business and family lives so completely intertwined any chance to break free was always going to be dangerous for this woman. Peppered with some well staged performances of their songs, and concluding with the birth of a legend, this is one of the more honest biopics that spares us little of the detail of a relationship riddled with turmoil and little respect. Fishburne presents us with a man who is odious in the extreme, but also one who exudes a degree of vulnerability as he clearly takes to drink and drugs to compensate for her success and his perception on how that impacted on his manhood to some extent. Not to excuse the behaviour - it seems commonplace for many African American women to have been the victims of domestic violence, but it does humanise the man a little and that does help to illustrate both the boldness and determination of an hugely talented and strong woman to do what she had to to break free of his magnetically toxic influence. It's based on her own book, and that adds a considerable degree of authenticity and richness to a depiction that's tough to watch at times, but well worth it.
