Critic Reviews

In “Earth, Wind & Fire,” Questlove tells the band’s story, and Maurice White’s story, in a way that’s at once thrilling and haunting. He captures their rightful place in the pop cosmos.

Thompson uses archival footage, contemporary interviews, and better-than-decent animation to construct a story that’s as much about White’s legacy — one that’s crucial to Thompson the musician — as it is about White himself. The Questlove-White connection helps the movie go deeper than a portrait by a nonmusician might have.

The film is a refreshing retreat to a bygone world of mid-20th-century spirituality; it’s also a sometimes painfully honest primer on the stories behind and in between the band’s biggest songs.

Using a well-edited combination of vintage and recent interviews and copious amounts of archival footage, the documentary recounts the band’s story in compelling fashion, with Questlove providing enough imaginative stylistic flourishes to prevent it from feeling like an extended Behind the Music episode.

None of the band members interviewed are out to beatify White—he didn’t pay them fairly; he took the publishing rights; he routinely overspent on tours, to the tune of half a million dollars at a clip. But he created an institution. Even when they’re shrugging off his sins with a smile, his old bandmates have to give him that.

Like the band itself, Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial VS That’s the Weight of the World) seeks to honor the past while looking toward the future.