Two stars from the 1980s are getting the documentary treatment this spring: Michael J. Fox and Brooke Shields. In both cases, the result is surprising and, above all, conclusive.
Directed by Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth), Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie hits Apple TV this Friday. Lasting 90 minutes, the feature film depicts the rise of the actor, then, of course, his fight against Parkinson’s disease.
Directed by Lana Wilson (who signed Miss Americana, on Taylor Swift) and split into two dense hour-long episodes, Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields landed on Disney in April, and chronicles the sexual objectification the actress endured when she was just a child, growing up in the spotlight.
This miniseries is surprisingly poignant. Surprisingly because it reveals aspects of the career of the former model that we were far from suspecting, given her look as a beauty queen. But behind his smile hide many dramas. In the second episode, she reveals that after having done her university studies at Princeton, a man (whose identity she keeps secret), with whom she believed to have a business meeting to discuss a feature film project, l was raped in a Los Angeles hotel room.
In front of the lens, the icon recounts having experienced an episode of dissociation during the attack, a state in which she had plunged a few years earlier when she had to shoot, at 16, a sexually explicit scene in Endless Love, by director Franco Zeffirelli. Without divulging anything, let’s say that she would have badly needed an intimacy coordinator.
In 2023, when we observe the way in which the image of Brooke Shields has been sexualized long before she reaches the age of majority, we are hallucinating. After the suggestive advertisements of Calvin Klein, Blue Lagoon, and Pretty Baby, by French filmmaker Louis Malle, the teenager had become, in the public eye, a Lolita. The series shows how this label followed her to court in 1983 when she tried to stop the sale of nude photos taken when she was 10 years old.
With a journalistic approach (ABC News is producing), Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields also tackles the actress’ complex and toxic — yet loving — relationship with Teri, her alcoholic and managerial mother.
Although it deals with less sensitive subjects, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie proves to be equally captivating, especially when the actor discusses Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative disease that has affected him for almost 25 years. He recounts in particular the first time he detected his signs, the day after a drunken trip to Florida, in 1990. Michael J. Fox, then in his late twenties and immensely popular, noticed his little finger quivering involuntarily…
The comedian hid his diagnosis from everyone (except his family) for seven years. To make the case even more tragic, we bring out old excerpts from Spin City, the sitcom in which he starred, and other TV archives (talk shows, interviews, etc.) in which we clearly see him hiding his twitching hand.
How is Michael J. Fox today? The disease continues to progress, reveal his supervised exercise sessions. He feels a lot of pain, but he seems to keep his spirits up.
Much lighter, the first part of the documentary depicts the rise of Michael J. Fox. We are told how the actor landed the role of Marty McFly in Back to the Future and, above all, the crazy schedule he stuck to for months, because he was shooting the sitcom at the same time. Family Ties for NBC. Every morning, a driver brought him to Paramount Studios for 9:30 a.m. After a day of work on Family Ties, around 6 p.m., it was Back to the Future. The actor was filming at night, leaving the feature film set in the early morning, and starting this routine again after two, sometimes three hours of sleep.
Much like Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie demonstrates that behind the glamour, there are stories worth telling.
