New Whitney Houston documentary a reminder of singer's enormous talent

Less than a year after Whitney: Can I Be Me, comes a second documentary about the singer.

And just as with Nick Broomfield's offering in 2017, I found myself praying in vain from the first frame - please, please can there be a different end to this story?

As a huge Whitney fan, this latest documentary by Kevin Macdonald, an impressive filmmaker of Marley and The Last King of Scotland fame, was desperately sad to watch.

Why couldn't someone save her from self destruction?

Macdonald's documentary offers its own bombshell answer, via Houston's personal assistant, who found the singer face down in the bath in 2012.

She was a victim of abuse and, as such, didn't want to be saved.

It's a heartbreaking revelation.

What this documentary has done so well is assemble a line up of all the key people in Whitney's all-too-brief life.

It takes a moment for you to register: yes, this is really Bobby Brown, her ex-husband, being interviewed - the man who has repeatedly been blamed for the downfall of the superstar.

This is not a story about drugs, he maintains.

But here are her brothers talking - it is drugs they say, lots of them, and it is with her brothers that she began taking substances. Bobby Brown's drug intake was apparently far less than Whitney's.

And here's her mother. Cissy Houston.

It is powerful to hear her talk about her daughter, the heartbreak still etched across her once proud face.

To have persuaded her to speak after the fall-out of Houston's death brought blame from some to her parents' door - too ambitious, drove her too hard - is quite a feat for Macdonald.

In the documentary, Cissy comes over as a broken mother.

It was one of the saddest days of my working life when I was called to come into work to cover the sudden death of Houston.

But I made sure I ended my piece for ITV News with her blockbuster performance of the American National Anthem at the Superbowl.

Simply awesome. Breathtaking.

And thankfully, this is what you are left with after watching Whitney, the documentary - more proof if it were needed of her astonishing talent.

The tragedy is too much to dwell on.

Whitney is released in the UK on July 6.