Kierre's Review of The United States vs. Billie Holiday 2021 ★★★

Watched Mar 21, 2021

The United States vs. Billie Holiday is basically about Billie Holiday's life, and her fight against the Government over her drug use and her song "Strange Fruit", a graphic song about lynching of black people back in the 1930's. Billy Holiday is played by Andra Day who is basically in her first staring role.

The film chronicles the issues of the FBI targeting her for continuing to sing the song as her concerts as they feel it incites riots. She is forced several times to leave the stage at concerts just for singing Strange Fruit. In the film, the FBI is looking for ways to silence her from singing the song and so they go after her for being a drug user.

I felt that Andra Day played a great Billie Holiday but did have some issues with the film overall. It was a Lee Daniel's film and it felt either like a Play or like a Soap Opera overall. Andra played a great Billie Holiday and can basically sing just like her and her acting was great but the story itself wasn't that interesting overall. I gave it 3 stars out of 5 just based on the acting of Andra Day but the film itself was just so-so.