Quiver Distribution
Unless you’re of a certain age, meaning between 50 and 60 years old, you probably have no idea who Helen Reddy is. And that’s a shame, but the new biographical film I Am Woman should shine the spotlight on the Aussie chanteuse once again. But the film is more than just a life story as the film’s title, the title of her greatest hit song, also has a deeper connection to real life events — the battle for equal rights for women.
The film makes clear from the start as young Helen (Tilda Cobham-Hervey) arrives in New York City with young daughter Traci in tow under the impression that she won a contest with a record label to record an album. Unfortunately, all she won was an audition and she’s informed the contest was the audition. But in 1966, Helen came to the US from Australia at precisely the wrong time as The Beatles and other all-male rock-n-roll groups were all the rage. Helen got gigs singing in empty nightclubs and being paid less than the band, because she was a woman and an undocumented immigrant. She had to take what she could get and be grateful for it. But Helen looked up and met fellow Aussie Lilian Roxon (Danielle Macdonald), a music writer, and the two became fast friends (and reading more of Helen’s story, it seems like the two barely knew each other in real life with Roxon replacing Helen’s real life friend Martin St. James in the movie). It was at a party thrown by Roxon (and by St. James in real life) that Reddy met Jeff Wald (Evan Peters), a brash New Yorker and secretary at the William Morris Agency who immediately took a liking to Helen, doted on her daughter, and felt he could be her manager and make her the star he knew she was.
The movie omits a lot of Helen’s story — a move to Chicago is completely erased — but the family (Wald and Reddy apparently married three days after meeting but this is never mentioned in the film) made it to Los Angeles and Wald did get a job as a music manager — for Tiny Tim and Deep Purple. Meanwhile, Helen fumed as she felt her career was reduced to being her husband’s housekeeper. At this point in time, the late 1960s / early 1970s, the women’s rights movement was taking hold across the country with the fight to have the Equal Rights Amendment ratified. This movement spurred Helen to push her husband into making her career happen and he finally got her a deal to record one single. In reality, the A-side was a flop but radio DJs started playing the B-side (and for those raised in this digital age, music then was on a record, a single was called a 45 and it had two sides with the B-side meant to be just something to fill space), a cover of ‘I Don’t Know How To Love Him’ from Jesus Christ Superstar which became a hit and launched her career. But seeing as how women were still being treated and how her friend Lilian was involved in the movement, Helen was inspired to write what would become the unofficial anthem of the Equal Rights movement, ‘I Am Woman’. From there the film details Reddy’s career high and personal lows, including Wald’s increasing drug addiction and her personal financial ruin before getting back up on her feet and making a triumphant return to the stage.
I Am Woman is a decent movie and it has a winning performance from Cobham-Hervey as Reddy. At first I didn’t think she looked very much like the real Helen Reddy, but comparing the two side-by-side I do see more of a resemblance than I thought. She handles Reddy’s roller coaster of a life well, even if the film begins to feel a little A Star is Born lite. There is one very heartwrenching moment that leads into the song ‘You and Me Against the World’ that did bring me to tears because of Cobham-Hervey’s performance and that song that always puts a lump in my throat anyway. (And the scene may have been manufactured for dramatic purposes, but it still works.) While Reddy and Roxon may not have been best friends in real life, Macdonald will absolutely make you believe they were with her performance. You really want to believe these women were the best of friends and both of their performances makes your heart break a little when a rift pulls them apart. Evan Peters as Wald is a good guy gone bad, eventually becoming the story’s villain and he plays the cad to perfection, getting quite frightening at times as drugs and his temper push him to the edge of his control. You truly worry for Helen when Jeff is at his worst, and that’s due to Peters’ performance.
The movie itself is very well done even if there are issues with the storytelling itself (and you have to give license for a life story told in two hours time). It does seem to gloss over a lot but one thing I really appreciated about the film was that it does put dates (at least the year) on pivotal moments, something I’ve found a lot of biopics recently don’t do (I’m looking at you, Bohemian Rhapsody). We know Helen arrived in the US in 1966, we know what happened in 1968 and 1972, etc. That is one of my pet peeves and I am so happy the film includes this information. What threw me off a little was the singing … or rather the lip syncing. Nowadays it seems directors like to capture musical performances live, but Ms. Cobham-Hervey does not sign Reddy’s songs, nor are they the original recordings (which is expected because some of the early moments of Reddy’s career were not recorded). Chelsea Cullen gives voice to the music and she does a fine job but it’s difficult to mimic Reddy’s distinctive voice. My issue was that some of the lip syncing looks like lip syncing, some times a little over-exaggerated than how someone would really sing. It’s a minor quibble but I found it distracting at times.
Overall, I Am Woman is a fine way to remember or discover Helen Reddy, and having the option to stream the film at home is probably the best way to see the film, which at times can feel more like an intimate TV movie than a big screen extravaganza, allowing you to really soak in the performances of the main cast and get involved in the story of Reddy and Wald, and learn some history about women’s rights as well. The film does end with an update on Reddy and Wald — both are still with us — but as it was made in 2019, there is one tiny detail the end text that has become outdated — believe it or not, the Equal Rights Amendment, once passed by Congress, still needed the approval of 38 states before it became law. Virginia became the 38th state in January 2020 to pass the ERA, nearly 50 years after it was first passed by Congress. Think about that … it took almost 50 years for women to gain equal rights in this country. And back in 1972, Helen Reddy was at the forefront, inspiring women with her empowering song. It’s still a powerful anthem today.
I Am Woman has a run time of 1 hour 56 minutes and is not rated.
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