Directed by Lee Daniels, the film stars Andra Day in the title role, along with Trevante Rhodes, Garrett Hedlund, Leslie Jordan (in his final film appearance), Miss Lawrence, Adriane Lenox, Natasha Lyonne, Rob Morgan, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Evan Ross, and Tyler James Williams.
In the 1940s, FBN chief Harry J. Anslinger declares Billie to be the top priority for his agents, as she is considered to be politically threatening due to the nature of her songs.
Anslinger assigns Jimmy to visit Billie in prison, confident that he can get her to incriminate herself on further charges that will lead to a longer sentence.
Instead, Jimmy (who has become convinced that Billie is being wrongfully persecuted) tells her to not trust anyone and keep her nose clean, lest the government find another way to destroy her.
After Billie is released from prison, she does a Carnegie Hall show, where she regretfully declines an audience member's request to sing "Strange Fruit".
Andra Day was set to play the title role, with Trevante Rhodes, Garrett Hedlund and Natasha Lyonne also cast.
[5] Andra Day stated that she went through intensive preparation for her role; in addition to shedding over 40 pounds to match Billie's physique, she also had to smoke cigarettes and drink to develop a similar vocal tone and to get in the mindset of someone gripped by a lifetime of addiction.
The website's critics consensus reads, "Although The United States vs. Billie Holiday often falls shy of its subject's transcendence, Andra Day's performance offers brilliant compensation.
[15] David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter wrote, "Day mesmerizes even when Lee Daniels' unwieldy bio-drama careens all over the map with stylistic inconsistency and narrative dysfunction, settling for episodic electricity in the absence of a robust connective thread.
"[16] Reviewing for Variety, Owen Gleiberman praised Day's performance and said, "In this sprawling, lacerating, but at times emotionally wayward biopic set during the last decade of Holiday's life, Day gives Billie a voice of pearly splendor that, over time, turns raspy and hard, and we see the same thing happening to Billie inside.
She gets beneath the skin of Holiday, giving a raw and honest portrait of an artist under duress but determined in her belief that she can use that art and talent to make the world a more just place.
Writing in JazzTimes, historian and musician Lewis Porter critiqued the ahistorical premise of the film: In Lee Daniels’ film The United States vs. Billie Holiday, the words “Earle Theater, Philadelphia, May 27, 1947” flash onscreen, and one sees a row of policemen, with Holiday’s manager Joe Glaser standing at the center of them.
Most significant, never in her entire career was Billie stopped while performing “Strange Fruit.” Yes, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics pursued Holiday for her drug use.
If you believed this film—and so far as I can tell, almost everyone did, even the many critics who rightly panned it—you have been the victim of one of the worst instances of rewriting history in the annals of Hollywood.