Dawn Porter’s Luther: Never Too Much is a force to be reckoned with. While it won’t pioneer the art form of documentaries, it brought me joy and pain, as it will likely do with anyone, regardless of their relationship with Luther Vandross. His music, along with Porter’s decision-making combine for an educational experience that just happens to be a rocking good time.
The choice to focus on Vandross' early years makes for a fascinating deep dive into his time as an unknown musician working with David Bowie and even in a Sesame Street ensemble. The end of Never Too Much looks closer at the struggles the singer dealt with and how the media fanned those flames. But Porter’s vision is careful not to sanitize his image; rather, it works to tell the story Vandross would have wanted us to know.
The rise of Luther Vandross is meteoric, though not in the way you might think. From his teenage years, he knew he wanted to be a singer and would not let anyone stop him. He found that his voice was undeniable, but America’s sense of physicality was not going to allow a heavier man into their homes just yet. In the following years, he would go on to become the number-one background singer in New York City. With a little nudge from Roberta Flack, he would finally make the plunge into being a solo artist. The rest is history.
Never Too Much underscores the way the media interacts with Vandross, which is tragic and perhaps even surprising to some. While fans of his music might have made comments about his weight or his sexuality, it was the media that made it a full-blown news story. As Vandross put it, these were disguised as a “human interest story”, and reporters would always find a way to bring up his personal life to the point that he would laugh off the fat jokes and outright tell some to “mind their f-cking business”.
The clips Porter chose to edit together are often close-ups that show different sides of the beloved singer.
In one of the more revealing clips, he bought out a massive bucket of KFC on stage during a show after Eddie Murphy made a comment about his weight in Raw. Though it seemed like he laughed it off, he would later admit that eating was his true coping mechanism and the vicious cycle he was put through by news outlets just perpetuated it. The 80s certainly isn’t the height of tabloid gossip, but it is where the sharks started to smell blood, and artists like Vandross paid the price.
Porter made waves directing 2013’s Gideon’s Army and would do so again in 2020 with John Lewis: Good Trouble. Both films center on more serious and real-life Black issues but does so with a verve and motion that the filmmaker has perfected in Luther: Never Too Much. The way she captures moments in Black history is grand and evocative. The clips Porter chose to edit together are often close-ups that show different sides of the beloved singer.
Despite strong performances and potent symbolism, Grotesquerie doesn't evolve much past its plodding narrative and scattershot storyline.
He often looked like the idol we all remember, but with factors like his weight and the way Black artists were lit at the time, he occasionally looked ghoulish with unforgiving makeup. Unfortunately, his weight loss also played a big part in how he was photographed from the neck up.
It's All In The Feeling
Generally speaking, no production element will blow you away with Luther: Never Too Much. Historical documentaries and biographical docs, specifically ones that rely heavily on talking head interviews, aren’t asking us to invest in any phenomenal filmmaking elements. These movies are built on the fact that you are here because you already care about the subject. Editor Mark Fason gives Luther : Never Too Much the same energy and verve as the hit song its title is named after.
The film is jam-packed with fun tidbits and celebrity cameos that will surprise a lot of Vandross' fans — the casual and the hardcore. Considering his level of fame, it’s strange we haven’t gotten a biopic or definitive piece of fiction with Vandross at the center, but Porter seems to have made the definitive Luther Vandross documentary and it's worth every minute of our time.
Luther: Never Too Much is in theaters on Friday, November 1. The film is 101 minutes long and not rated.
English (US) ·