Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Audrey’ On Netflix, A Documentary That Sheds Light On The Human Side Of Audrey Hepburn

It’s a little more than surprising that there aren’t more comprehensive or innovative documentaries about the lives of some of Hollywood’s most beloved icons. Audrey, now available on Netflix, is here to remedy that. Helena Coan’s film seeks to shed light on a side we haven’t quite seen of screen, stage, and style star Audrey Hepburn with the help of the people who were closest to her. Is the documentary worthy of the icon? Or are you better off sticking with her Wikipedia page?

AUDREY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Audrey Hepburn. An icon for the ages. Perhaps one of the last true stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age. She made waves on screen and stage and as a style icon, but she was much, much more than that – and this is what Helena Coan’s film Audrey seeks to illustrate. The film quickly takes us on a journey through Audrey’s origins in Europe and doesn’t shy away from the truth about her fascist, Nazi-sympathizing parents. We learn her father left the family when she was quite young, and it’s later speculated that this abandonment – and the insecurity and fear that it caused – played a large role in her romantic relationships for the rest of her life. Following her liberation in The Netherlands, she arrived in a post-war London hoping to achieve her dream of becoming a ballerina. Unfortunately, the war had caused her to miss pivotal years of training and technique development, so she soon turned to taking on bit roles in films and on stage to pay the bills. It wasn’t long before the stars aligned and she made her stage debut in Gigi, and soon after broke through as a true star in Roman Holiday, which earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress.

The film goes on to follow the tried-and-true formula of combining archival footage and interviews with film clips. Audrey chronicles moments both big and small in her career as well as her personal life with the help of her son, Sean Hepburn Ferrer, granddaughter Emma Kathleen Hepburn Ferrer, friends, film critics, historians, actors like Richard Dreyfuss, and fellow icons like Peter Bogdanovich. Through their words and her own, Audrey is painted as so much more than the sunglasses-covered face that adorns so many walls around the world.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Audrey feels like just about every other documentary about old Hollywood icons out there, whether made-for-TV or bigger budget. If you’ve dug things like Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, Making Montgomery Clift, and the like, Audrey will likely be just the ticket for you.

Memorable Dialogue: Audrey herself said many beautiful, profound things that are included in this documentary, but I was most moved by these words from her granddaughter Emma Ferrer, who got incredibly choked up: “My dad said about my grandmother that the best-kept secret about Audrey is that she was sad… It really makes me sad to think about…You know, I really think she just wanted love and to be loved, and… I did think she got that in her life, but I think she didn’t get it from a lot of people. For the woman who is most loved in the world to have such a lack of love is so sad.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: When it comes to documentaries about famous or iconic subjects, it’s fairly easy to predict how the film will play out, beat-for-beat. This is certainly the case with Audrey, down to the weird dramatic ballet interludes that don’t really do anything to serve the film’s effectiveness (rarely do any of these attempts to illustrate the subject’s emotional state actually work in these sorts of films, with the exception of the Daniel Tiger animations in Won’t You Be My Neighbor?). Despite this predictability, however, I was utterly charmed by Audrey, a film that truly loves its subject and seems to really care about showing the world the woman she was, rather than just the dazzling film icon. It’s this adoration that makes the film work; even in its most formulaic moments, the story of Audrey is one undeniably human and important. It’s not just about her rise to fame and the impact her art had, but about the demons she battled her whole life, and what she really felt called to do as a person.

That the more personal revelations exposed in Audrey are discussed by people like Hepburn’s son Sean Hepburn Ferrer and granddaughter Emma Kathleen Hepburn Ferrer, a young artist, only make them more affecting. One moment in particular – the one I referenced above in which Emma tears up talking about the deep sadness Audrey lived with – is enough to make you reach for your own box of tissues. There’s something about knowing just how carefully constructed Audrey’s public image and brand were when she presented such a carefree, joyous character to the world, and Audrey helps us to really understand why. Her own broken childhood and even the rejection from her father as an adult weighed heavily on her, and it’s likely that all these things are what caused her to turn her back on the film industry for a (very important) decade in favor of being a present parent – and why she spent most of her final years working with UNICEF rather than making more films.

There are so many great little nuggets Audrey presents us with, like her stunning, history-making friendship with Hubert de Givenchy (pretty much every iconic look she ever donned can be attributed to him), how she was the only person late night king Johnny Carson was intimidated by, how she was terrified of dancing with Fred Astaire. It’s not that this is all new information or that Audrey delves into anything that makes it a particularly important piece of work, but it is pleasant and engaging viewing, especially for lovers of film history and Hollywood. By the end of the film, it actually feels as though there is more they could have gotten into – even enough material for a miniseries, in fact, which might further illuminate all the shadowy corners of this endlessly fascinating woman. Her charm and allure are alive and well, and Audrey is a testament to that. I only wish the film had plunged us a little deeper and allowed us a little longer of a peek behind the curtain.

Our Call: STREAM IT. While it doesn’t exactly reinvent the wheel, Audrey lovingly pays tribute to a woman rarely thought of outside her on-screen roles and sheds light on the human behind the icon.

Jade Budowski is a freelance writer with a knack for ruining punchlines and harboring dad-aged celebrity crushes. Follow her on Twitter: @jadebudowski.

Watch Audrey on Netflix