There are three names in the opening credits of Sidney: The first is the title, which refers to the documentary's subject, legendary actor Sidney Poitier, and the third is director Reginald Hudlin. In between them is Oprah Winfrey, the movie's producer and benefactor, who was undoubtedly a primary factor in recruiting big name interviewees like Denzel Washington, Robert Redford and Halle Berry. More than a Hudlin film, Sidney is a Winfrey production, a slick piece of dull hero worship that frequently returns to Winfrey's own reverence for Poitier. She's the first person to speak in the movie other than Poitier himself, as he's talking about his childhood in the Bahamas.
Later, she tells a story about meeting Poitier at her own birthday party that sounds like desperate name-dropping from one of the most successful media personalities of all time. Following clips of an older Poitier receiving honors, including an American Film Institute Life Achievement Award, an honorary Oscar and a Presidential Medal of Freedom, there's a clip of Poitier bestowing Winfrey with her own honor during her talk show's 20th anniversary. Out of all the interviewees, including both of Poitier's wives and all six of his daughters, Winfrey is the only one who cries on camera.
Everyone Hudlin interviews has nothing but praise for Poitier, a pioneering actor who was the first Black leading man in Hollywood and leveraged his stardom into civil rights activism. Poitier, who appears in an interview conducted before his death in January 2022, is a compelling storyteller as he recounts his youth in the Bahamas, his move to the U.S., and his entry into the movie business. Many of the supporting testimonials are redundant, from cultural commentators stating the obvious to celebrities offering bland tributes. Anyone who's a devoted Poitier fan is unlikely to learn anything new. There are surprisingly few direct anecdotes, although Hudlin gets some strong accounts from Poitier's onetime co-star Louis Gossett Jr. and civil rights activist Willie Blue.
The movie takes a linear approach, devoting the majority of its time to Poitier's early career, when he was regularly breaking boundaries for Black actors in Hollywood. Poitier had a remarkable run of roles in the 1960s, including a landmark Oscar win for 1963's Lilies of the Field, and Hudlin gives each of those films their due. He emphasizes just how revolutionary it was for Poitier to rise to mainstream leading-man status, although he glosses over some of the other performers who paved the way for Poitier, and who worked alongside him.
The major exception is Poitier's longtime friend and colleague Harry Belafonte, whose presence in Poitier's life is one of the documentary's key themes. Hudlin includes several clips of the two men on The Dick Cavett Show, and their interplay with each other and with Cavett mainly highlights how much livelier these discussions can be with a more engaged, present interviewer and more interactions among subjects. Even while recounting some of the most turbulent times in American history, Hudlin's film remains sedate and nonconfrontational.
Hudlin also breezes past any potential negative aspects of Poitier's life and career, which diminishes the impact of all the accolades after a while. Poitier was certainly a great man, but that doesn't mean that he was perfect or that his work was unassailable, and there's no complexity to this movie's portrayal of him. It's a feel-good bit of puffery that could have been produced for an Oprah Winfrey TV special — which is essentially what this is. The clips of Poitier's films show a performer with charisma and passion, and watching any of those movies would be a better use of two hours. ♦
Sidney
