Andra Day outclasses and saves an otherwise humdrum movie.

Andra Day is spellbindingly good as the jazz legend whose anti-racist song "Strange Fruit" made her an enemy of the racist U.S. government, but the film built around her isn't worthy.

Day is simply dazzling in the role, and more than makes up for some of the film's other shortcomings, which include the rather ponderous direction.

Day holds together a film which might otherwise have seemed inchoate in the extreme.