METRO BITES

The big release 15

POLICE have rescued 18 people from the back of a refrigerated lorry on the A1(M). An HGV driver raised the alarm at Haddon services near Peterborough after noticing people were on board. None was injured.

THE UniTEd STaTES VS BilliE Holiday

★★✩✩✩

In 1937, a bill to ban the lynching of African Americans was considered by the US Senate. It didn’t pass. Shockingly, as of 2020, it still hasn’t, according to the pre-credits of this biopic, which frames the tragedy of arguably the world’s greatest jazz singer within a civil rights context.

A well-worn trope sees the movie kick off in 1957 with Holiday (Golden Globe-nominated Andra Day) recounting her past to a journalist. She’s asked why she insists on ‘causing trouble’ by performing Strange Fruit, a devastating song about lynchings Holiday carried on singing despite the attempts of US federal agents (led here by Garrett Hedlund) to silence her, first through threats then by busting her for drug possession. Repositioning Holiday as a civil rights hero is admirable but the scenes involving a fist-shaking Hedlund feel repetitive. A more interesting arc involves Trevante Jones as conflicted agent Jimmy Fletcher, the undercover officer who ended up in Holiday’s inner coterie. Director Lee Daniels has plenty of material but can’t make his movie sing. And while Day and Daniels do good work in reclaiming Holiday as a woman who made choices, rather than being a victim, you still feel you’re flicking through a glossy magazine spread of her life.