355. Audrey; movie review

 

 

AUDREY

Cert PG

100 mins

BBFC advice: Contains mild bad language, sex references, upsetting scenes

I had often wondered why Audrey Hepburn had seldom passed by my radar when I was growing up and watching movies.

I had presumed she must have died tragically at a very young age.

Actually, she lived until she was 63 - still not as old as she should have been - but, thankfully, she had a very full life.

Helen Coan's documentary begins unpromisingly - fawning too much over the famous, backed my music which drowns out the contributions.

But, fortunately, as the ruckus recedes, it blooms into a biopic which probes into the psyche of the star who craved the love she was desperate to give.

The movie chronicles Hepburn's life from her birth in Belgium, move to England and then on to Holland, only months before the Nazi invasion.

It skips over the disappearance of her father, returning later to explain its devastating effect on her.

I felt the film rushed through her Hollywood career, not fully explaining her big break for Roman Holiday and consequent superstardom under the controlling eye of husband Mel Ferrer.

For 15 years, she was the top pick as a leading lady even when she was an unsuitable choice for My Fair Lady for which her weak singing was dubbed.

The documentary includes archive and new interviews which are laid over footage of Hepburn and her nearest and dearest.

Among those is her son Sean although her second child, Luca, is missing without explanation. 

Interestingly, there are just two big-name contributors from Hollywood, Peter Bogdanovich and Richard Dreyfuss.

This is probably because she did not feel at home amid the glitz, instead preferring to play with her dogs in the gardens of her European homes.

Her grand-daughter reveals the big secret that she "wanted to be loved" and she finally found happiness with her third partner and during her a job as an ambassador for Unicef who she championed all over the world.

It was clear that seeing starving children took her back to those hungry wartime days in Holland.

Her efforts for Unicef saw the organisation double in size and to this day her family runs a children's foundation on her behalf.

I found this fascinating and by the end of Audrey I realised the reason she had escaped me in the 1980s - because the beautiful elf had become so much more than a film star.

And that is what she wanted.

If you are a fan of grace and good intentions, this is worth watching.

Reasons to watch: Insightful and, eventually, uplifting

Reasons to avoid: Its slow start and the annoying music

Laughs: None

Jumps: None

Vomit: None

Nudity: None

Overall rating: 8/10

Did you know? While Hepburn boldly supported the resistance, her father, who abandoned her when she was a little girl and her mother were members of the British Union of Fascists. Fortunately for Hepburn, this was little-known in the 1950s as it would have been disastrous for her image.

The final word. Helen Coan: "She’s so iconic, but no one really knows the depth and the vulnerability and the strength of her.' " Culture Whisper

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