Billie

The thrill of the documentary is in hearing the voices of key players in Holiday's story and their competing versions of events.

"Billie" isn't just about the stories we tell about great artists. It's also about why we tell them - and whether we can ever really get them right.

Erskine's Billie is an honest memorial to the rich talent, and the arresting traumas that made the voice of a generation.

A unique remembrance of a remarkable but ill-fated chanteuse who sang the truth.

If "Billie" gives short shrift to its subject's artistry while underscoring her life's squalor, it still offers pockets of valuable insight.

Despite some dubious editing (including the colorization of images), Erskine aptly anchors the movie in Holiday's art, with well-chosen clips of her startlingly intense performances.

As much as the film is a testament to Holidays life, it is also a tribute to the passion one writer had in getting to know the real Lady.

The brilliance of this duality, the two tales documenting Holiday, of the artist and of the biographer, the telling of the singularity that was Billie through [a] mirror.

This loving portrait sheds little new light on the star, but is compelling nonetheless...

[It's] a highly unusual non-fiction film because most of it is based on previously unreleased audio interviews that were conducted in the 1970s ... of numerous people who knew [Billie Holiday] best and who wouldn't be able to be interviewed today.