Everyone is buzzing about the Lifetime Aaliyah biopic — and not in a good way. I watched the whole thing with an open mind, hoping to draw my own conclusions, but unfortunately, it fell flat for me. The casting felt wildly off, and the writing leaned hard into melodrama, losing the nuance and depth that made Aaliyah so iconic. At times, it felt less like a tribute and more like a rushed greatest-hits reenactment with none of the soul.

It’s frustrating because of how much Aaliyah meant to an entire generation. To girls like me and my friends growing up in the late ’90s and early 2000s, she was everything: stylish, mysterious, cool, and fiercely individual.

We studied her videos, tried to master her “Are You That Somebody?” choreography, and attempted to mimic her falsetto in the car on the ride to school (sorry, Mom). She wasn’t just an artist. She was the blueprint. Rihanna’s edgy streetwear phase? Aaliyah did it first. Ciara’s dance-heavy videos? Aaliyah laid that groundwork. Even early Nicki Minaj paid homage.

That’s why people are so upset. The film didn’t just get a few details wrong. It missed the spirit of who she was. Aaliyah wasn’t some tabloid figure to be flattened into a two-hour movie-of-the-week. She was a boundary-pusher, a style icon, and a vocal trendsetter whose influence is still felt today. Her death at 22 hit hard, and her legacy deserves more care and intention than what this biopic delivered.

I loved Aaliyah so much I went to see Queen of the Damned twice in theaters and bought the DVD. I wasn’t alone. She left an imprint that goes beyond music, and her story deserves to be told when the right people, with the right perspective, are finally ready to do it justice.