"I want to be mysterious, like Garbo."
New Michael Jackson Biopic Focuses on Freedom, Not Controversy
It was in this way—direct and forceful—that Michael Jackson explained to his lawyer and manager, John Branca, in 1981 that he refused to give interviews about Thriller, the album released the following year that would cement his status as a global superstar. This moment, depicted in Michael, the new biographical film about the man whom actress and friend Elizabeth Taylor crowned the "true king of pop, rock, and soul," is framed as Jackson's first cry for independence—both from his controlling father and from the Jackson 5, the family band he had joined at just six years old.
It is this struggle for personal autonomy that dominates much of the film's narrative, which, for all its efforts to glorify the artist, ultimately offers only a superficial portrayal of his complex personal and artistic journey. Along the way, it glosses over the controversies and allegations—particularly those of child sexual abuse—that would later engulf him in the years following the Bad tour, where this film's story abruptly ends.
