Not Just A Girl misses the music-doc mark by a country mile

In an era of introspective concert-footage films and intimate musician biopics, along comes Not Just A Girl – a shockingly bland, boring and bullet-point-esque documentary that looks more like a fanmade Youtube testimonial video where shiny written text replaces voice-overs as the primary narrative device. It’s 2022, and there’s no reason for a documentary about one of the most definitive female artists in the history of modern music to be so unimaginative, so assembled and so bereft of basic film-making grammar. I grew up listening to this artist. I’ll grow old resenting the documentary that reduces her to a hasty footnote in a Netflix content library. Not Just A Girl is based on Shania Twain , the chartbusting Canadian country singer-songwriter who inspired future superstars like Avril Lavigne and Taylor Swift. Yet, it isn’t a patch on Swift ’s Miss Americana or, more recently, Jennifer Lopez ’s Halftime. It’s just a start-to-end narrative featuring a slew of unremarkable interviews, archival footage and very little cultural context or curiosity – existing solely in service of the legend rather than the life. There is exclusive access to Twain herself, of course, but even the interviews have the strangest visual language, exuding mild spiritual-leader vibes from the way they’re staged in different parts of her mansion. It all looks very vain, plasticky and curated, which is the last thing a new-age viewer needs from the story of someone who perhaps revolutionized and bastardized country music at once. As Orville Peck notes, she “shifted culture”. If only Joss Crowley’s one-note documentary shifted an iota of our reading of a 45-year-long career. Here’s a singer who grew up poor, started performing at the age of 8, lost her parents at 22, provided for her siblings by doing stage shows, got signed in the early 1990s, challenged the squeaky clean image of country music, became a rare female superstar across genres, became the highest selling female artist of her time, fell ill, lost her voice, lost her marriage and still came back stronger. It takes some doing to make such a loaded life look so dull and distant. Not Just A Girl tells us precisely the facts – nothing more, nothing less. A 56-year-old Twain speaks of her highs and lows without really inviting us into her history. Her anecdotes about her collaborators, albums, the recording of her iconic singles and her tours aren’t backed by interesting visual or narrative framework; she looks and sounds like she’s speaking over the course of one single day. It never helps when the subject herself doesn’t look as invested as she should be. Shots of her in a boat or driving a car through a picturesque countryside are hardly compelling, only adding to the glossy, hallmark-ish feel of the project. Ironically, Twain was known for her distinct and tasteful music videos, one that broke the pop-and-rock stranglehold over the MTV-age medium. The tragic part about Not Just A Girl is how tragically unaware it is of its own potential. It touches upon some fascinating talking points – like how Twain revitalized the natural relationship between country music and the queer experience; her creative partnership with her producer ex-husband; her feminist lyrics celebrating a gender rather than angrily defying one. But neither of these observations are afforded more than a cursory glance. There’s a part where she speaks of filming “Any Man of Mine” with late Hollywood actor-director John Derek, whose famously toxic gaze towards women would make most actresses leave the set in tears. It’s an awkward couple of minutes, because she looks torn between praising his ‘method’ and condemning his attitude. This is intercut with Bo Derek speaking fondly of her late husband as someone who respected women only if they stood up to him like Shania Twain once did; she sounds reluctantly envious of the singer. The tone-deafness of the filmmaking ensures that this portion is oblivious and poker-faced, too blinded by its reverence towards Twain to recognize the complexities of her journey. A better documentary might have used this moment as a pivot to reveal the strength of a female artist reinventing a male-dominated music genre. But unlike the person it’s based on, Not Just A Girl is content with its compromised identity and shackled ambition. If this documentary were a singer, it would still be performing at a noisy Nashville bar. In the words of Twain herself: That don’t impress me much. Not Just A Girl is streaming on Netflix

Rahul Desai is a film critic and programmer, who spends his spare time travelling to all the places from the movies he writes about. Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News ,  India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.