I Wanna Dance with Somebody does not have an identity. It goes through the motions of biopic tropes in chronicling the rise and fall of pop superstar Whitney Houston (Naomi Ackie), but it doesn’t actually have anything important to say about her or a viewpoint from which to approach her story. Ackie works in the part, but it’s not exactly transformative material. Thankfully, the film does touch on Houston’s love life as being not entirely straight, so that’s not hidden from the audience; however, what is hidden is a sense of purpose as to why the film was made beyond “we haven’t done Whitney yet.”