Paramount Pictures
A scene from “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never.At the beginning of “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never,” the speedily assembled but not frantic biopic and concert extravaganza that was released last week, the first clips you see aren’t of Mr. Bieber but of popular YouTube videos: the surprised kitty, the sneezing panda. Multimedia
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Even in 3-D “Never Say Never” doesn’t get much closer to the heart and flesh of Mr. Bieber than this, though there are plenty of flashes of shirtlessness deployed as a tease. (This look will be familiar to readers of Us Weekly, who’ve seen images from Mr. Bieber’s recent Caribbean vacation with his maybe-girlfriend, Selena Gomez.)
Mr. Bieber, who will turn 17 next month, is emerging as a teenage star who doesn’t condescend to his audience. There’s little mystery in this film because there’s little mystery in Mr. Bieber. Unlike the Disney kids and boy bands who’ve preceded him in recent years, he’s mostly transparent. As childhood videos in “Never Say Never” make clear, Mr. Bieber had plenty of personality before the machine got a hold of him.
What impresses about “Never Say Never” is speed. Mr. Bieber’s debut single was released 21 months ago, and the film’s central unsuspenseful suspense is, simply, can he sell out Madison Square Garden after only about a year of fame? As if you ever doubted.
Had he come up through the Disney system of cross-promoted TV series, movies and albums, or in a more traditional era for teenage pop, Mr. Bieber would have had a far longer incubation period of dues paying, a more programmed rise to the top. But his bottom-up success has been less predictable, and more thrilling to watch. (In its opening weekend “Never Say Never” made nearly $30 million, rivaling the concert movie record of $31 million that “Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour” took in three years ago.
Still, the concert footage, from his Madison Square Garden show last August, is rote and unimaginative; Mr. Bieber still doesn’t know how to fill the huge rooms that he’s been allowed to take over. I attended the concert and watched the film’s director, Jon M. Chu, and Mr. Bieber’s manager, Scooter Braun, attempt to orchestrate some coordinated arena-wide shots, mostly involving vibrating girls and hand gestures. Much of it didn’t appear to make it into the film, which aims for a softer sell.
The movie is propaganda designed for children as well as their parents; no kid is interested in what Randy Phillips, the chief executive of the touring giant AEG Live, has to say about Mr. Bieber’s success, but there he is pontificating, reassuring parents that their children are supporting a potent phenomenon.
For parents too there are moments of candor, like when Mr. Braun recalls watching Madonna eulogize Michael Jackson, lamenting his lost childhood. “Justin looks right at me,” Mr. Braun said, “and says, ‘Don’t let that happen to me.’ ”
To that end there’s footage of Mr. Bieber visiting his hometown, Stratford, Ontario, and having fun with old friends. He signs a stack of programs and flicks them away petulantly, as a kid might. And there’s the awkwardness of his duet with Miley Cyrus: Mr. Bieber has not yet learned how to lie with his body.
And there’s plenty that’s not in this film. Mr. Bieber doesn’t sit for a proper interview to contextualize his success in his own words; the closest he comes to explaining himself is in a silent slow-motion shot of him shaking his trademark tousle, the softest of soft porn. Who needs vocal cords when you’ve got hair this good?
Except there’s this: Very much in spite of itself “Never Say Never” ends up being the best argument to date for Mr. Bieber as a singer, far more convincing than his albums. There’s clear audio of him at the Madison Square Garden concert, which sounds strong. There are happenstance clips of him singing, sometimes well, as he passes the time. And there are the old videos of him singing covers at around the age of 12, including an impressive one of him performing the Christian song “Refine Me” on the steps of a theater in Stratford.
But while Mr. Bieber does a lot of singing, there’s barely any discussion of music. If a Christian music impresario had found him on YouTube instead of Mr. Braun, a hip-hop and R&B-minded one, would Mr. Bieber be touring megachurches, not arenas?
There’s no reason to think Mr. Bieber couldn’t be a different kind of savior, if only because he’s improved virtually every world he’s infiltrated lately. Super Bowl watchers saw him mock himself in a Best Buy ad with Ozzy Osbourne. Left-wingers and stay-at-home comedians enjoyed him in spite of themselves on “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.” Tina Fey melted for him on “Saturday Night Live.” I’m wearing my Bieber Silly Bandz as I type this. (Actually, I’m not. My order hasn’t shown up yet.)
And the best part of the Bieber movie: You don’t even have to go to the movie theater to see it. His old pre-fame clips are still readily available on YouTube, including some that oddly didn’t make the film. (No “Justin Bieber plays the djembe”?) On Sunday night at the Grammys a widely trafficked video of a young Mr. Bieber singing for Usher, his future mentor, got prime play before the two performed live.
You can be part of the movie too if you want. Or need. In an upset Mr. Bieber lost the best new artist award at the Grammys to the jazz musician Esperanza Spalding. Some of Mr. Bieber’s fans, a hungry and vicious lot, responded the only way they knew how: by defacing Ms. Spalding’s Wikipedia entry. When it comes to Mr. Bieber, they are used to having their way.
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