There are a lot of problems with The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021), but they are not the fault of Lady Day (Andra Day).  As a fan of her music, I was excited to see a biopic about her.  At the same time, my excitement was mixed with trepidation.  From what I know of her personal life, my fellow Catholic did a lot of things that I knew would make for a difficult watch.  The real Holiday was a cradle Catholic and her Faith remained a part of her identity.  As so many of us experience, it was what happened outside of church walls (and off stage for her) that became ugly.  It is God that judges us on the basis of our sins.  Among ourselves, though each relationship is different, we should treat one another as the brothers and sisters in Christ that we are.  Put simply, hate the sin but love the person.  After all, this particular one gave the world “Strange Fruit.”

A song like “Strange Fruit” helps explain a title like The United States vs. Billie Holiday.  As the opening script tells us, in 1937 Congress failed to pass anti-lynching legislation against these sadistic, extra-legal executions used to terrorize African Americans.  Some eighteen years later, Billie is giving an interview to Reginald Lord Devine (Leslie Jordan), a jazz enthusiast who is getting a retrospective on her career.  They start ten years earlier at the Café Society where she has a regular gig.  The public is just becoming aware of her famous tune, but the powers-that-be, namely the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), is not keen on it.  Labeling it as subversive, they make it known that she will get in trouble for performing it, sending agents to spy on her concerts.  Amongst these is Jimmy Fletcher (Trevonte Rhodes), who is fresh out of the army and has been hired by the bureau.  He has been tasked by Harry J. Ansliger (Garrett Hedlund), the director of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), to monitor Billie.  Jimmy wants to serve his country but he is also a fan of the famous singer.  He uses his desire to get close to her as a pretense for keeping tabs on her.  Feeling the pressure of her fans, as well as the encouragement of her friend and saxophone player, Lester Young (Tyler James Williams), she is about to perform “Strange Fruit.”  Once she begins, though, she is interrupted by a number of law enforcement officers and is carried off the stage.  They take her to a non-descript apartment where she uses heroin with another friend, but they are found by the police with Jimmy among those on the scene.  Because she is unwilling to name her supplier, she is sentenced to a little over a year in prison.  The African American community and fans mourn her jailtime, particularly Jimmy’s mother (Adriane Lennox), who accuses her son of betrayal.  Jimmy begins to question his actions, wondering if he did the right thing.  Nonetheless, Director Anslinger is determined to keep the pressure on Billie. He thus orders Jimmy to continue to gain Lady Day’s trust.  Though Jimmy agrees to visit Billie in prison, he warns her not to trust anyone when she is released.  This advice is received, though not followed.  Her main problem is the fact that her cabaret card has been revoked, meaning she is barred from performing at nightclubs around the city.  It is while visiting one of these venues that she meets promoter John Levy (Tone Bell).  He tells her that he can get her on stage and will pay off any authorities who might raise an objection.  Sadly, as with so much of her life, it comes with caveats.  He abuses her, physically and sexually, and is clandestinely talking to the FBI about her.  What ends this affair is another raid by Director Anslinger and company.  As they are entering the hotel room in which Billie and John are staying, Jimmy observes John dropping an opium bottle into her pocket.  Jimmy is called as a witness during her trial and he testifies that it looked as if the drugs had been planted on her.  As such, she is acquitted.  From there, she announces that she is going on a cross-country tour of the United States.  Because Director Anslinger is angry with Jimmy for his testimony, Jimmy’s boss orders the junior agent to follow Billie and her band.  Though this is considered a demotion, Jimmy gets the opportunity to spend a lot of time with Billie.  At one of their stops, she convinces him to try heroin.  As they are high, she talks about her hard life growing up in a bordello where her mother was a prostitute, who made the ten-year-old Billie sell her immature body for money.  Though he never uses again, the emotional intimacy turns physical, and they spend much of their trek behaving as a couple.  Because of her past and addictions, however, the happiness does not last.  At one point in their travels, they come upon the site of a lynching.  It spurs her to sing “Strange Fruit” in the South, which brings her a great deal of attention, good and bad.  Eventually, she calls Louis McKay (Rob Morgan), a gangster and pimp from New York to pick her up from the tour.  She later marries him, and while they travel Europe and other places giving concerts, he continues to feed her drugs and alcohol.  At some point, Billie and Louis drift apart, which brings us up to the interview that began the proceedings.  By this time, the alcohol and drug abuse has begun to take a serious toll on her life.  Following a recording session in which she could barely remember the words, she checks herself into a clinic.  She is visited for a few days by Jimmy, who admits that he is still in love with her.  Unfortunately, their happy little appointment is cut short by Louis and Director Anslinger, who want her to admit to her wrongdoing.  Instead, she laughs in his face, saying that generations will remember “Strange Fruit.”

At the end of The United States vs. Billie Holiday, Director Anslinger might have felt as if he had the last laugh because they arrested her in her dying days.  What the film dramatizes is his fixation with the singer.  The government did pursue her because of her drug use, but their fear of “Strange Fruit” is exaggerated.  All the same, if you know your history (or are looking at current events), you can see why the song might be seen as a problem by certain people.  It paints a haunting picture of a sad reality for African Americans.  If people got out of line or tried to upset the status quo, then they were lynched in order to make an example of that person.  We do the same thing today when we look at those we deem as “un-American” by whatever invented matrix we use to judge such things and send, in some cases, armed men to deal with them.  What Billie does with the song, and her overall attitude towards the forces arrayed against her, was to act in a Catholic manner.  Of course, one must overlook her drug use and promiscuity, but this label is not without merit.  She went to a Catholic school as a girl, her funeral was in a Catholic Church, and she was buried in a Catholic cemetery.  In the film, I also appreciate seeing her go to a parish to be comforted in a time of grief, albeit for the death of her dog.  There is another scene in which she is praying before the tabernacle, which is one of the more Catholic things a person can do.  She may have fallen away from the Faith a bit as an adult, but she would have been comfortable with calling herself Catholic.  Thus, I do not think it is too crazy to cast some of her actions in the same mold as Jesus.  Our Savior did a number of things to upset the natural order for which He was crucified.  Even if the film dramatizes this aspect of Billie’s life vis-à-vis Director Anslinger, it is not inconceivable that such a song would upset others at that time.

What can also be upsetting is watching The United States vs. Billie Holiday.  There is a lot of adult material, though I will not say that it crosses my pornography line.  Nonetheless, there more than a couple nude scenes, and many more of drug use and foul language.  It is not enough for me to make a full recommendation, but it is a powerful film.