After the autobiography I, Tina and then the 1993 Oscar nominated film What’s Love Got to Do with It and,most recently, the Broadway Musical Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, is there anything left unsaid about Tina Turner’s life at this point?
Not much, as it turns out, and yet the first feature length documentary about the biggest name to ever come from Nutbush, Tennessee is nonetheless engaging, in furisting and inspiring. In other words, her life story will always have the essential elements for a great tale, the only question is whether the storytellers are up to the task.
Directors Daniel Lindsay and T.J Martin spend an awful lot of time talking about the subject that Tina repeatedly says she doesn’t want to talk about anymore: her years of domestic abuse at the hands of former husband and musical Svengali Ike Turner. You can’t blame them, after all, it took a long time for her to no longer be called “Ike and Tina Turner,” but rather just “Tina Turner.” I’m sorry – I know she is tired of talking about it, but there is no inspiration, no heroine to root for, no villain to despise, without telling this part. It is told well and the archival footage, much of it never seen before, helps convey that Ike was one cruel, insecure, messed up man.
Fortunately, there is, as we know, much more to the story – the triumphant escape, the meteoric 2nd Act of her career which improbably had her as a 45 year old sex symbol who wore leather skirts and rocked the arenas of the world. For most audiences today, this will be the familiar Tina with the cool hair and thousand-watt smile.
New to me: her children. She had 4 sons and we see some of them and the Los Angeles house in which they all lived. Also new to me – the story of her romance with Erwin Bach, whom she dated for 17 years before they finally tied the knot (he’s 16 years younger). That’s a nice thread that the filmmakers pull on. And Kurt Loder, the only guy who has visibly aged in this story, the guy we remember from Rolling Stone magazine and MTV – he has some nice nuggets to sprinkle into the narrative.
The film’s warmth that is woven within – and there is some warmth – comes courtesy of Tina herself. To me, she has never been the best raconteur – she is too guarded. Too afraid to use the wrong word. But when she is onscreen, the room lights up. Now 81 and still looking fabulous, she, for the first time in my life, doesn’t look like Tina, the performer we know and love. She looks like somebody’s Auntie from church. And, my god, that’s perfectly okay, isn’t it?
She’s still here, living a relatively quiet life in Switzerland (the cameras take us there, too) and enjoying love in her twilight years. There are plenty of stories that we ask our elderly relatives to tell us once more. And once more. And once again. It doesn’t matter if we’ve heard it before, we listen through it to get to the well-earned happy ending.
Tina premieres on HBO Max March 27th. | 2 Hours | Reviewed by Kyle Osborne
