Long the subject of tabloid gossip when they were an active band, R&B group TLC saw its career trajectory dissected in not one but two VH1 "Behind the Music" documentaries, in 1999 and 2001. Now, T-Boz, Left Eye and Chili have gotten the feature-length treatment: on Monday night, "CrazySexyCool: the TLC Story", a full-length TV movie chronicling the group's rise, near demise and redemption, aired on VH1 to considerable fanfare, as viewers tuned in to relive the drama of the group's brilliant but conflicted time in the spotlight. Scroll down to the end of the page to watch the full movie.
Actress Gabrielle Union expressed her approval of the movie on Twitter on Monday night, writing, "Those girls did work! Lil Mama, Keke, & Drew, GREAT job! TLC still gives me life". Jurnee Smollett, who appears on NBC's "Parenthood", added her kudos, saying, "Wonderful acting, dancing...& they looked gorgeous! Ima [sic] watch this a 2nd time". Singer Keri Hilson also chipped in on Twitter with some praise of the movie. "Thank you #TLC for making this tomboy comfortable in her skin," she wrote on Monday night.
Critics have been less generous. In its review of the movie, the New York Times notes the "tremendous amount of trauma" which the group suffered during its time in the spotlight. That included Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes' volatile relationship with NFL player Andre Rison, which culminated sensationally with the torching of Rison's house in 1994 after Lopes set fire to a pair of his shoes; Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins' battles with sickle-cell anemia; and the group's recurrent financial problems, for example. The Times writes that these traumas prove "too much to pack into just a couple of hours, especially when each member's grievances require equal airtime" and took exception with the producers' choice not to focus on the what-ifs of the group's ascent to stardom. "Often," it wrote, "the actresses do little more than appear on screen to deliver the heavy-handed, exposition-thick dialogue by Kate Lanier."
The AV Club is largely in the same boat, applauding the VH1 "Behind the Music" episodes for doing "a good job taking an unbiased look at the group", while ripping the new film's credibility as an objective look at a much-beloved artist trio. "CrazySexyCool fails on a number of planes," it writes, "but its biggest faults come from its blatant inability to look at the group from an outsider's perspective. The movie has clunky exposition, horrible lip-synching, and questionable messages about relationships, but more than anything, it's just goddamn hokey."
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