MICHAEL JACKSON: SEARCHING FOR NEVERLAND
US, 2017, 105 minutes, Colour.
Navi, Chad L Coleman, Sam Adegoke, Starletta Du Pois, Richard Lawson, Aidan Hanlon Smith, Taegen Burns, Michael Mourra, Isabella Hoffman.
Directed by Diane Houston
The world was shocked at the death of Michael Jackson in 2009. Over many decades, from being a little boy (The Jackson Five, singing Ben…), His adult career, music, music, dance and moonwalk, Thriller… And the range of documentaries about him, he had become the King of Pop.
However, his later years were clouded by his eccentric behaviour, relationships, children, accusations of sexual molestation.
This film, played fairly straightforwardly rather than any sensational manner, considers the final years of his life. He is played, by Navi, sufficiently resembling Michael Jackson but sufficiently different to make audiences realise that they are watching a performance, and impersonation.
The opening information indicates the difficulties in Jackson’s life, the accusations, courts, his exoneration – but the strange mixture of his reputation throughout the world, hostility (and the screenplay here voices one of the vitriolic accusations), as well as besieging fans.
The framework is an investigation into Michael Jackson’s death, the role of the doctor, Conrad Murray, Michael Jackson’s drug dependence, the intervention of the doctor or not. And, it is from the point of view of his bodyguards, the security detail (and the film is based on their book:
The point of view is very much that of the senior guard, Bill Whitfiied (a sympathetic performance from Chad L. Coleman) who employs his relative, Jovan (Sam Adegoke). Bill bonds very much with Jackson, almost immediately, and with his children. And, he allows himself to be at the beck and call of Michael Jackson – with the demand that the guards revealed to know one whom they work for. In the house there is a nanny, sympathetic. There are also manages, especially a domineering agent, Miss Green, who wants Jackson to appear on stage in Las Vegas to remedy his financial difficulties. Jackson does not want to.
And there are the three children, with Jackson as their beloved father, acting as an extravagant buyer of gifts, wanting to take them out, sheltering them from the public. There are some episodes indicating how difficult this is, taking the children to a mall in Las Vegas and being mobbed. The contrast is his sitting in his limousine and watching them go out to play as normal. And a solution where he puts on a crash helmet and is able to go out with the guards and the children undetected.
This is quite a sympathetic film for Michael Jackson even though one of the children asks his explanation of his being caught Wacko Jacko. He is eccentric. He is reclusive. His father comes to visit and he refuses to see him without an appointment. One of his brothers crashes his car into the gate demanding money and his father coming to tell him to back off. There are scenes with his very sympathetic mother.
There are some moments of singing, some moonwalking especially with the children, reminding us of the impact that Michael Jackson made. There are also fans at the gate, the police trying to ward them off, and, when he walks in the mall at Las Vegas, fans mobbing him.
The Jacksons had to move out of Neverland after the scandals. They lived in various hotels and there was the prospect, with the tour of a mansion, which might have become Wonderland.
There are financial difficulties all the time, the two guards going for months without pay, Jackson at times trying to remedy the situation but, in an extravagant scene, his going through a shop and buying $39,000 worth of toys and gifts for his children.
Throughout the film, officials interrogate the two guards, who tell the story, building it up, explaining Michael Jackson and their loyalty – and their shock when they were not present and saw the news of his death on television.
There is some epitaph information, Jackson’s grave, the guards attending.
An opportunity for fans to look at and understand Michael Jackson. An opportunity for those who do not know much about him to see this interpretation of him and of events.
