Nina Simone and the Clichés of the Musical Bio-Pic

“Nina,” the long-gestating bio-pic about Nina Simone, written and directed by Cynthia Mort, opens today. It shares one peculiar quality with two other recent bio-pics of musicians, “Miles Ahead” (in which Miles Davis is played by Don Cheadle, who also directed) and “Born to Be Blue” (directed by Robert Budreau, starring Ethan Hawke as Chet Baker). All three films, which leap around in time by way of flashbacks, are anchored in a moment when the artist is in bad shape, is engaged in self-destructive and self-defeating behavior, and isn’t performing in public or doing much at all with music. I hope it’s not too much of a spoiler to say that, in all three films, the artist gets it together (more or less) and makes a successful comeback. (In “Born to Be Blue,” the return is the most equivocal.) What’s more, in each movie, the comeback arises through the involvement of a new person in the artist’s life.