WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT (1993)

WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT (R) Adapted from Tina Turner's autobiography, this portrait of her hellish marriage to Ike Turner, the St. Louis blues-rock innovator who launched her and then kept trying to knock her down, is like A Star Is Born remade for the dysfunctional age. As the film tells it, Tina found her identity as the wife of a monster and therefore couldn't bring herself to leave. The two lead actors are spectacular. Laurence Fishburne navigates every scary nuance of Ike's raging soul, showing us the demon- haunted logic of a man who feels shut out of the very success he so craves. And Angela Bassett lets us experience Tina's passive nightmare as if we were inside her skin. The musical numbers are electrifying, though with an undertone of poignance, since offstage Tina was living in chains. ( 176/177, June 25) A- -OG

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