Audrey: More Than an Icon

Out next week on home video is a new documentary on Audrey Hepburn. Audrey: More Than an Icon is available on DVD or Blu-ray December 15, and on VOD on January 5.

I requested and was provided a DVD review copy, because some of her films are some of my favorites, and I was curious to learn more about hoer life. I must have already picked up more than I realized, because I don’t felt as though I learned much new watching this movie. So much of it was already familiar to me, as she struggles through the war and starts as a ballet dancer in London.

It does a great job establishing the basics — her life before Hollywood, how she was discovered, her best-known movies (Roman Holiday, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Funny Face), the controversy over MY Fair Lady and the dubbing, her husband and children, her later charitable work. If you don’t know much about her, there are plenty of facts.

Unfortunately, most of her actual words included here are audio only, which makes it difficult to make them visual. Writer/Director Helena Coan has chosen to run some of them over footage of an anonymous ballet dancer, alone on a dark stage, to illustrate Hepburn’s early life, but it plays as rather pretentious.

Contributors include director Peter Bogdonavich, film critic Mollie Haskell, family members and friends, and someone from Givenchy who talks about the clothes. Everyone who talks about her says how wonderful she was. I found my attention drifting throughout, as the presentation is flat and predictable.

Someone who’s a fan may want to have all these pictures, and someone who knows nothing about Audrey Hepburn will find this a thorough introduction — but if that’s the case, why would they watch this documentary?

Here’s the trailer: