HBO's Tina will give even longtime Tina Turner fans a renewed appreciation

Variety

"I," says Owen Gleiberman, "am always on the lookout for a music documentary that can get a whole lot of people buzzing because it’s about an artist who seems like an old friend, whose story we may already think we know, yet it re-assembles that story with enough hindsight big-picture vision that it can blow you away in a whole new way. It can make you think, 'Now I truly know that story.' And it can re-immerse us in the music with an ear-opening passion that’s not just nostalgic but transporting. When you see a documentary like Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice or The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart, you may go in as a die-hard fan, but you come out as a born-again fan. Tina ... is that kind of movie. It presents the story of Tina Turner that has become, over the decades, a kind of mythology. Tina first went public about the torment of her life with Ike Turner, who physically abused her during most of their 19 years of partnership, back in 1981, when she told it to People magazine. Five years later, she came out with I, Tina, the autobiography she wrote with Kurt Loder, in which she expanded on that story in disturbing and moving detail. The book became a major Hollywood biopic, What’s Love Got to Do with It (1993), a film that some of us thought was a darkly convulsive and exhilarating landmark. It won mountains of praise for its two lead actors, Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne (both of whom were nominated for Oscars), and it planted Tina Turner’s story ­— how she rose from nothing, was discovered by Ike, became his star and muse and prisoner, and finally escaped, only to go on to even greater heights — into the realm of legend. I went into Tina feeling like I knew this story in my bones, but the film kept opening my eyes — to new insights, new tremors of empathy, and a new appreciation for what a towering artist Tina Turner is."

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• Tina is harrowing, inspiring, and at times unbearably moving: "In this cluttered age of memory lane hagiographies, it’s the rare biodoc with a self-consciousness about how it treats its mighty heroine, navigating strength and terror, shame and celebration with a careful respect, which is why Tina is being pitched as a farewell biography of sorts for the Grammy-winning legend (after two memoirs, the 1993 film What’s Love Got to Do With It starring Angela Bassett, and a jukebox musical)," says Robert Abele of the documentary from Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin. "Because while owning her past only ever burnished her hard-won solo stardom, Turner — who sat for the filmmakers in her lakeside home in Zurich, Switzerland — would love nothing more than to live out her retirement in spotlight-free solace with the husband who loves her, German music producer Erwin Bach, and not ever be asked about old wounds ever again."
• Tina is a must-watch for those who already know Tina Turner's story: "The story of Tina Turner has been told before," says Jen Chaney. "It was partially shared in a People magazine interview back in 1981, the first time the singer publicly described the abuse she endured during her 16-year marriage to musical partner Ike Turner. It was laid out in more detail in the autobiography I, Tina, co-written with Kurt Loder, and then again in the 1993 movie based on that autobiography, What’s Love Got to Do With It. But Tina Turner has not told her story the way it is told in Tina, the HBO documentary debuting March 27. Positioning itself as a definitive account of the life and career of this rock-and-roll pioneer, the documentary enables Turner, now 81, to discuss the full breadth of her existence in her own words, while speaking directly to camera. Tina is sweeping, fascinating, and, because of Turner’s participation, deeply personal. It also frames itself as the final word on this music legend, strongly implying in its closing moments, including a montage of Turner taking bows during performances throughout the years, that this two-hour movie is essentially Turner’s farewell to the wider world."
• Tina is ultimately about Turner telling her story — why she struggles having to tell it; why she needs to tell it and why she wants to be done with it: "Turner may be the protagonist of a drama with great swings between oppression and liberation, but it’s not a role she has any natural affinity for," says Jake Coyle. "...That gives Tina an unusual tension. In a way, Turner rejects her own biography. Not the facts of it, but the emphasis on certain chapters. The 81-year-old Turner, who gave her support to the documentary, appears in modern-day interviews from Switzerland where she seems content to put much of it to bed. This, we’re meant to gather, may be her final word on her life story."
• Tina doesn't allow the violence in Turner's life define her: "What makes Tina such a welcome addition to the Turner lore is that while Lindsay and Martin don’t ignore the violence in her life—because that would be disingenuous—they also don’t let it define her. The movie has two goals: to increase appreciation for one of the most powerful vocalists and most electrifying live performers of the 20th century, and to emphasize how unjust it is that so much of Turner’s story has been dominated by her abuser."
• Directors Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin explain how they got involved with Tina after directing such documentaries as the Los Angeles riots film LA92: "We were approached to do this after the producers had made a deal with Tina and her husband Erwin (Bach) to finally do an authorized documentary, I guess you'd call it," says Lindsay. "We were a little reluctant at first for a few reasons. We were unsure, should two men be telling Tina's story? And we really respected and admired Tina but we weren't big fans, so we had to do a bit of education. We felt what her story, so to speak, offers which most other music documentaries don't is that there's an actual story there: There is a narrative and a life and things to explore within that life that speak to greater themes and ideas. A lot of other music documentaries are like a music catalog in search of a story." So going into it, how much access did they know they would have with Tina? "She had committed to the project, her husband is an executive producer on the film, but going into it we knew we only had her for a limited amount of time, contractually," says Martin. "Once we made the decision to commit to the story it was, for us, being transparent about the things we wanted to explore. Part of that came out of early conversations with her and recognizing that the trauma of her past is bubbling beneath the surface and that directed us toward the POV we took. There's essentially two main characters: it's Tina and then the narrative Tina, and can we get Tina's perspective on that narrative."