HBO's Jane Fonda in Five Acts feels like you've stumbled into a particularly raw therapy session

Rolling Stone

Filmmaker Susan Lacy, who directed last year's HBO Spielberg documentary, is "smart enough to know that if your subject is ready to unload, you get out of the way" with her new film on the iconic actress, says David Fear. "You form relationships with stars over decades, and even if the bond you feel with those 20-foot-tall faces on screens is one-sided, you still feel like you know these people who lived so long in the public eye," Fear says of Lacy's documentary style. "To hear one of them so blatantly lay out insecurities, neuroses, anger, fears, failures, fuck-ups and feelings about what having to live as the object of someone else’s desires or needs does to a person can be sobering. More importantly, it can be insightful, which is what makes the film’s high-wire exorcism act invaluable. It’s not, 'and here was what I was thinking when I was collecting an Oscar and making The Electric Horseman.' It’s 'I’m a woman, I’m going to be damaged' when talking about her apprehension about being a mom and continuing a cycle. It’s 'I spent a decade not asking too many questions.' It’s 'I just wanted to be OK' and 'I never felt real.'" ALSO: Jane Fonda's candor is hard to find in biographical documentaries.