Review: Gaga: Five Foot Two Shows a Superstar at Her Most Vulnerable

This week, Lady Gaga announced that she was postponing the European leg of her world tour — a series of stadium shows that had been meant to be a globetrotting victory lap after her smashingly successful Super Bowl halftime show in February. “I have always been honest about my physical and mental health struggles,” the singer wrote on Twitter. The singer’s struggle with chronic pain is one of the several threads of Gaga: Five Foot Two, a backstage documentary arriving on Netflix Friday. The film is without much precedent — documentaries of its sort are generally filmed at a carefully selected moment during which the artist will be shown at their best. From the start, Five Foot Two shows Gaga at a professional and, arguably, personal low point. Rarely in the pop world have calculation and need rubbed up against one another in such a combustible way, particularly given that Gaga made her name on her status as someone deeply focused on image and long seemed too over-the-top to ever be brought low. The documentary is a riveting piece of work. The action of the film follows the creation, release and promotion of her most recent album, Joanne — even as that process is vexed by both personal ailments and a marketplace that’s cooling on Gaga. Her last studio album, Artpop, was widely deemed a commercial and creative disappointment. Her desperation is evident when Gaga arrives at a Walmart to buy Joanne on the night of its release. She want...
Source: TIME.com: Top Science and Health Stories - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized five foot two Lady Gaga Music Netflix Source Type: news