Darien Playhouse: Michael Jackson's This Is It

When I heard about the documentary Michael Jackson's This Is It, my initial reaction was one of cynicism.

“The freak died,” I thought, “and they have to try to squeeze some money out of this ill-advised concert he was about to launch by launching a movie instead.”

If the measure of the merit of a documentary film is that it can change your mind about something, then This Is It was certainly a success for me.

I’m just a little younger than Jackson, and I grew up listening to his music: from the Jackson 5 to his breakout albums Off the Wall and Thriller. How many times I’ve danced to “Pretty Young Thing”? I could not tell you.

It was in 1984 that Jackson suffered serious burns to his head and scalp during a pyrotechnic mistake while filming a Pepsi ad. This seemed to mark the beginning of a decline for Jackson, even though several popular albums were still to come. In addition to the popular albums came painkiller addiction, the weird over-the-top Neverland home slash zoo, accusations of pederasty, the increasingly bizarre plastic surgeries, his odd friendships with people like Elizabeth Taylor—and so on. So, although I still enjoyed hearing a Jackson song on the radio, I thought of him as a nut. I forgot about how awesome he was in"Thriller."

This Is It is not a documentary about Jackson’s life on or off the stage. It was filmed originally for Michael Jackson’s personal use; and it focuses almost entirely on rehearsals for his upcoming concert, which the fifty-year-old Jackson apparently hoped would re-establish him as an artist. In the context of these rehearsals, we also observe other performers and support personnel achieving their dream by working on a truly unprecedented concert for the King of Pop.

We see a brief shot of the dancers auditioning, and then some amazing footage of them rehearsing. Musicians and singers all have a chance in the spotlight. We get brief interviews with costume artists and set designers. These hardworking people, it is clear, have worked all their lives for this opportunity, and they are joyful and professional.

The concert was intended to be multi-dimensional. In addition to Broadway-style dance sequences and sets, aerial artists, pyrotechnics (are you kidding?) and rock guitarists, the medium of grand-scale 3-D film was to be integrated into the concert.

We get to view these films—fantastic remakes of "Thriller," gangster film sequences mixed in with old movies, a massive military sequence, a take on the Amazon Rainforest (Jackson, it turns out, was an environmentalist)—all accompanied by terrific music.

This Is It is not a particularly objective documentary, in that we get very little footage of raw rehearsal or conflict. Most of it is very cleanly staged and acoustically, unbelievably perfect. Which is fine with me, because I enjoyed the music thoroughly.

If anything, the movie focuses a little too much on Jackson. I felt like I was watching the same shot of him singing and dancing from the same angle over and over again, only to different songs and in different outfits. The film probably could have used editing from someone who wasn’t completely enamored with Jackson. And the several young children in the audience with us at the Darien Playhouse were restless, talking loudly and needing to get up and go outside for a while.

So it’s not a young child’s movie. My twelve-year-old daughter, while behaving much better than the others, will not be recommending the film to her friends.

But if you are or ever were a Michael Jackson fan, and you enjoy dancing and music and watching people perform, then you will not want to miss this documentary.

Even at fifty, Jackson was a genius. Scene after scene he’s dancing with all of these amazingly talented handpicked youngsters, and he is better than they are. He makes his dance moves look effortless. And you can see how, after he listens to his director (Kenny Ortega, the chubby genius behind High School Musical) and choreographers and vocal coaches, he still calls the shots creatively. He da boss!

In fact, although very thin, Jackson looks so vital and so engaged. It is difficult to believe that he is ill, over-medicated and soon to die.

The shocker is that at the end my eyes filled with tears. And the movie didn’t get maudlin on me; this was just from viewing a circle meeting of Jackson’s cast. Jackson wasn’t just a great talent, he seemed to be a kind and loving human being. His concern for the planet was heartfelt. His generosity towards his fellow-performers was remarkable.

And now I am sad. I am sad that Jackson died, and I am sad that the movie did not have more footage of his earlier career, and a little less of him rehearsing for This Is It.

If you have a giant screen and a super sound system, you might want to wait for the DVD, since it is overlong; but if you're looking for a flick at the Darien Playhouse, and you wish to be impressed and saddened—then this is it.

Darien Playhouse showtimes: 1:30, 4, 6:30, 8:45 p.m. Running time: 1 hour 51 minutes. Rated G.