American Symphony (2023) Movie Review – You never truly know what people are going through

You never truly know what people are going through

Composer Jon Batiste and his wife, Suleika Jaouad, are at the center of the new Netflix documentary, American Symphony. It’s a film that has a few different roads for the audience to travel on. Jon’s career and artistry make him one of the greatest contemporary musicians right now. His recent success with his Grammy wins is certainly part of the focus. But behind all of that was the battle his wife was going through with leukaemia.

All these things make for a bittersweet documentary about taking things as they come in life, as well as being a testament to an artist’s journey and the love of his life.

If you watch The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, you are aware of Jon Batiste’s 9 to 5 per-se. He was the band leader on the show, but his story does not stop there. American Symphony follows him during the success he has had with his 11 Grammy nominations back in 2021. Batiste would go on to win five that fateful night, including Album of the Year for his EP titled “We Are.” At the same time, his wife, Suleika, was beginning treatment for leukaemia that had resurfaced after a decade.

American Symphony is loaded with highs and lows. Its focus is not just on Batiste’s journey; it is on Jaouad’s as well. To the cameras, he looks like a man of what we all perceive success to be. To his wife, in those quiet intimate moments with her, as they laugh with one another on FaceTime, watch her struggle through treatment, and sits and prays, trying to keep his optimistic energy that he’s known for, we realize he is just one of us.

Batiste pays his bills like all of us and works on his craft too. And he also deals with whatever life wants to throw at him, whether it’s Grammys or the uncertainty of a spouse’s health.

The documentary also takes different roads. Batiste’s artistry is an awesome thing to watch unfold as he works on a project that he has been developing for four years prior to the camera rolling on this doc. Then it bounces back to him and his wife having a small wedding prior to a bone marrow transplant she must undergo. Jaouad is a success story in her own right. She has a successful New York Times column and a book on the Best Sellers list as well. Oh yeah, and she’s also gone toe to toe with death a few times and won. 

The film paces like a symphony with highs and lows; dark times and times of celebration. Joyful moments and sorrowful ones too. Batiste wins multiple Grammys, then has to rush back to New York to be with his wife, who was rushed back to the hospital after her bone marrow transplant. You just never know what someone is actually going through, even when things are looking great for them.

And yet, through all of that, we end this film with the debut of Batiste’s American Symphony event at Carnegie Hall. Where he performs his long-awaited project for us all. The performance takes up the last twenty minutes of the movie with him playing the piano along with his diverse batch of bandmates, jump-cutting back and forth to special moments we have seen him present in earlier in the film. And then the power goes out for a few minutes on stage. Highs and lows. And then the power comes back, and Batiste and his group don’t miss a beat on stage.

The film’s final moments feel like the end of any underdog story we’ve seen in movies, for both John Batiste and his wife Suleika. They feel like the end of the story of someone who kept going against all odds. Batiste is center stage on screen, but it’s something his wife said earlier in the film that elevates this moment even more. When leaving the hospital, her narration over the scene says, “You’re meant to return from the hardest moments of your life stronger and braver, and more of a warrior for what you’ve been through. I don’t want to have tough skin. I want to feel the things that are happening to me. The terrible things. The beautiful things. I want to be open to it all.”

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