Critic Reviews

The film’s main triumph is in crafting a convincing narrative with a clear point of view.

It just has a story to tell, and it does that incredibly compellingly.

We’re fortunate to witness such impassioned consideration of Houston’s art, career, and life from the people who actually knew her. Still, it’s notable that Crawford isn’t interviewed here.

For all the beautiful and lovely music Whitney Houston gave us, for all those soaring notes she hit, the documentary Whitney. Can I Be Me is a nearly joyless and melancholy piece of work. Because we know how it ends.

Whitney Can I Be Me delivers yet another tragic lesson in the toxic mix of fame and talent and children: it should be required viewing for all those who seek to follow this diva’s path to fame and fortune.

"Whitney's" story makes for strong and compelling viewing even though it has something of a cobbled together feel to it.

A surprisingly conventional, dutifully respectful behind-the-scenes portrait of Whitney Houston’s rise and struggles with fame and drugs before her death at 48.

As is often the case in documentaries like this, absorbing all those details as part of one, tightly edited story gives them an impact they lack when digested in individual pieces over time.

We are left with a powerful sense that her death was a tragic loss, both privately and publicly, but Can I Be Me never quite tells us why.

The film doesn’t use enough of Houston’s music.