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MOVIE: Whitney STARRING: Whitney Houston, Cissy Houston

RATING: M REVIEWER: Leigh Paatsch

THIS is the second recent documentary to chart the irresistible rise and irreversible demise of American singing legend Whitney Houston.

Let the record show that Whitney is the clearly superior work.

2017’s Whitney: Can I Be Me? (currently available to stream on Netflix) mounted an analog analysis of Houston based purely on (not so) educated guesses.

By comparison, it is not hard to notice the new doco’s tenacious desire to dig deeper and push harder for a fuller understanding of its talented, tragic subject.

Director Kevin Macdonald, a highly skilled, Oscar-winning documentarian, makes a telling first move by reminding the viewer of the enormity of the gifts with which Whitney Houston was blessed.

Even in the lightweight pop phase of her early career, there was more going on with Houston than just an extensive vocal range, or precision pitching. There was passion. There was soul. There was belief. There was beauty.

However, whenever Houston stepped away from the microphone, an ugly reality returned to swamp her, which the act of singing had only ever temporarily kept at bay.

Macdonald’s film expertly isolates the disconnect between the joy Houston found only in music, and the misery that was never too far away.

The filmmaker does enjoy an advantage in that he was able to secure worthwhile interview access to a relevant selection of family members, employees, collaborators and friends.

Houston’s elderly mother Cissy is a surprise participant here. Though guarded with her choice of words, her stern responses channel a pain and aloofness that were obviously damaging elements of her daughter’s upbringing.