So Lifetime’s Whitney Houston biopic premiered last night. Discuss. This one was directed by Angela Bassett and Lifetime really wanted you to know that. Because, as you may know, if you’ve been paying any attention to Lifetime recently, their Aaliyah biopic was, well, less than great, so they had a lot to make up for.

Whitney Houston
Whitney was better than Aaliyah, but not by much.

Enter Angela Bassett, the woman who who starred in Waiting To Exhale — you remember, the movie where Whitney sang that Shoop Shoop song. She’s in the know and has a lot of healthy respect for Whitney’s story – this time, it had to go right.

Well, judge for yourselves. Whitney takes a dubious pro-Bobby-Brown angle, which isn’t awful, but becomes really, very questionable when Whitney (Yaya DaCosta) tries to lure him into her big pile-o-coke, while Bobby (Arlen Escarpeta) clutches his beer and replies “I’ll stick with this.”

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So much for the sex, drugs and R’n’B then.

DeCosta makes a likeable heroine – maybe too likeable for what this movie is supposed to be. She’s also a great dancer, which makes the cringe-worthy cheese momements a little easier to stomach. The singing is by Deborah Cox, the Nineties R&B diva fondly remembered for Nobody's Supposed To Be Here,  which ruled the radio the same winter as Whitney's Heartbreak Hotel.

Look, it’s a Lifetime movie. Obviously, it’s not a masterpiece. It’s not even really good. Bassett or not, it’s still the kind of Lifetime fodder, where the main character says things like “Time to become Whitmey Houston.”

At least they tried this time.