Audrey: More than an Icon (Bohemia Media DVD)
Audrey Hepburn dedicated the last years of her life to UNICEF. For her, it meant circling back to her childhood in Nazi-occupied Holland. She was often hungry. Helena Coan’s documentary doesn’t fully illuminate Hepburn’s sketchy childhood in Belgium, London and the Netherlands and the fascist activism of her parents. Coan focuses on the person who seemed to emerge out of nowhere to earn an Oscar for Roman Holiday (1953). Before that film, Hepburn had trained as a dancer (that physical grace!) and played bit parts in British films before becoming the last great star from Hollywood’s old studio system. She was the un-Marilyn, the contra-Doris Day—natural and unaffected yet sophisticated. Interviews with historians Peter Bogdanovich and Molly Haskell help explain her unique career. (David Luhrssen)
Herself (Streaming January 8, on Amazon)
Clare Dunne, appearing as the lead Sandra, also co-wrote this fetching, if mildly saccharine screenplay. An abused wife, Sandra finally gathers her courage to leave Gary (Ian Lloyd Anderson). Sandra’s single-minded ambition is to own a home of her own. With limited income as a part-time caregiver and cleaner, Sandra sets out to build a small abode using house-plans she finds online. The land in donated by Sandra’s well-to-do employer (Harriet Walter, injecting a bit of twinkly sarcasm), that prompts Sandra to gather construction volunteers from among friends and acquaintances. Director Phyllida Lloyd, of Mamma Mia, manages several song opportunities that ratchet the feel-good factor up to “feel-gooder.” (Lisa Miller)
Louis Van Beethoven (Film Movement DVD)
No, that’s not a typo. Apparently, in his youth, the great composer was sometimes called Louis, not Ludwig. The interesting 2020 film by German director Niki Stein begins late in Beethoven’s life on a carriage where he reads a letter over and over, triggering flashbacks of childhood and youth. In old age he was stone deaf, struggling to show musicians how to perform music he could no longer hear. Hidebound players were deaf to his profound breakthroughs, the dissonances he explored that expanded the scope of post-Mozart classical music. And yes in the background, there was political turmoil. (David Luhrssen)
Pieces of a Woman (Streaming January 7, on Netflix)
This drama examines our fragile state while under extreme stress. After Martha (Vanessa Kirby) and Sean (Shia LaBeouf) lose their newborn during a home childbirth, their closeness unravels. Ellen Burstyn plays Martha’s domineering mother while Molly Parker appears as the midwife sued with help from Martha’s cousin, an attorney (Sarah Snook). Iliza Shlesinger completes the family portrait as Martha’s sister. All players are well-cast, but as the story examines loss, anger and resiliency, it’s Kirby who puts Martha’s pieces together in the most poignant manner. (Lisa Miller)
Sudden Fear (Cohen Film Collection Blu-ray)
Film noir included a subgenre of women-in-danger movies. One of the best is this tense 1952 drama starring Joan Crawford as an heiress menaced by her husband, played by hawk-faced Jack Palance. He seems charming and in love, but he’s really plotting with his fatally coquettish girlfriend (Gloria Grahame) to kill his wife and take her fortune. A note of class envy is sounded as well as anxiety over the role of men as breadwinners. Can the wife outsmart her enemies and outrun them on the maze of nocturnal San Francisco streets? Crawford’s face is marvelously expressive, deep shadows have seldom been deployed more effectively on film and there’s even the unconscious menace of a malevolent wind-up toy. (David Luhrssen)
