What’s Love Got to Do With It
The saga of Tina Turner has become a myth and a parable.
When this biopic was released in 1993, the story of her marriage to Ike Turner — the extraordinary music they made together, the horrific abuse she suffered — was still taking lace, making the movie all the more relevant.
The brilliant Angela Bassett, in her only Oscar-nominated turn, does full justice to the power of Tina’s stage persona in the 1960s, when she was at the peak of her intense and intoxicating singing and dancing.
Offstage, she shows how Tina was trapped in a relationship of love, terror, and fear.
Yet Laurence Fishburne’s performance as the manipulative, two-faced Ike is compelling–it’s (unfortunately) a realistic portrait of toxic domestic male rage.
Made way before MeToo, What’s Love Got to Do With It is a cautionary tale of unchecked abuse.
It’s the story of an artist who contributed to the pop-music landscape with the fury of her gift.
