Unlike some of the other reviewers who have a political axe to grind I was a big fan of Jane Fonda and especially her trip to Hanoi during the Vietnam war. I always thought she was incredibly brave and unlike all the other peace protestors she was the only one who didn't just talk about peace but did something to show what that war was doing to Vietnamese and to Americans alike. By the time I finished watching the documentary I thought a lot less of Jane than I did before I watched it. It seems Jane always had to be in the spotlight, either on screen or on stage or speaking at a rally. She must have craved the attention and adulation fiercely. To get it she left three men behind, as well as her children, pursuing a life of meaningless activism, speeches, conferences, marches, etc. that did nothing to change anything but stoked her ego. She seems to be completely devoid of any self awareness. In the documentary, Peter Fonda says of his father, the only way Henry Fonda could have been a good father is if someone gave him a script that said "I love you son." She seemed not to notice how many parallels there were between her father's life and hers - multiple marriages, being a movie star, leaving family behind to chase their own agendas, attempt late in life to reconcile with their daughters, putting forward a false image of the perfect family.
I thought it odd that in the documentary Jane said not one word of her half sister the painter Frances de Villers Brokaw, 6 years older than Jane, who was her mother's daughter by a previous marriage and was in several of Jane's childhood family pictures, and who died in 2008. She talked about the trauma of her mother's death by suicide but never even mentioned her half sister who must have felt equally traumatized. Likewise there was no real time given to her partner of 8 years, Richard Perry, whom she broke up with in 2017.
Jane was step mother to Roger Vadim's daughter for 8 years but apparently when she left Vadim, she cut off all relations with his daughter with whom she had been so close. Jane was a totally different person with each of the important men in her life. A wholesome ingenue for her Dad. An international film star and sexpot for Vadim, an activist living an impoverished lower middle class life with Tom Hayden, and a billionaire's celebrity wife for Turner. From what I could see she discarded people who had been close to her with each of her transformations. This documentary came off as a vanity piece, for Jane. But to me she came off as a self centered, driven, ultimately confused and self deluded chameleon.
I thought it odd that in the documentary Jane said not one word of her half sister the painter Frances de Villers Brokaw, 6 years older than Jane, who was her mother's daughter by a previous marriage and was in several of Jane's childhood family pictures, and who died in 2008. She talked about the trauma of her mother's death by suicide but never even mentioned her half sister who must have felt equally traumatized. Likewise there was no real time given to her partner of 8 years, Richard Perry, whom she broke up with in 2017.
Jane was step mother to Roger Vadim's daughter for 8 years but apparently when she left Vadim, she cut off all relations with his daughter with whom she had been so close. Jane was a totally different person with each of the important men in her life. A wholesome ingenue for her Dad. An international film star and sexpot for Vadim, an activist living an impoverished lower middle class life with Tom Hayden, and a billionaire's celebrity wife for Turner. From what I could see she discarded people who had been close to her with each of her transformations. This documentary came off as a vanity piece, for Jane. But to me she came off as a self centered, driven, ultimately confused and self deluded chameleon.