Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticIn the first two of its four parts, the doc depicts a rising star whose decision to take her career by the reins represented a split from her famous family, through old footage as well as interviews with Jackson closer to the present day.
Those interview segments, though, struggle to reveal much about a figure whose poise, and whose commitment to privacy, makes “Janet Jackson” a challenge.
Janet Jackson seems at times to be operating at cross-purposes with “Janet Jackson” — which would make for an intriguing battle of wills, but for the fact that the real Janet wins so handily.Ben Hirsch, the documentary’s director, had access to Jackson for years, and spoke to her as well as creative collaborators and members of her family. (Jackson-watchers will, perhaps, find intrigue in which of her siblings speak on the record.) In one early scene, for instance, Jackson returns to her family’s home city of Gary, Indiana, to look at her childhood home.
There’s a raw emotional power to Jackson’s bearing in these scenes — she breaks down in tears, for instance, looking at a mural of the Jackson Five, the boy band comprised of her brothers.
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