RJ Cutler's Martha Stewart Documentary for Netflix

From teenage model to high-class restaurateur, from doyenne of the nation to media billionaire, from exploited convict to thirst-trap-loving octogenarian and friend of Snoop Dogg, Martha Stewart has had a life that defies belief, or at least coherence.

It's an unlikely journey that's taken place largely in the public eye, which poses a particular challenge with his new Netflix documentary, Martha. Maybe there are younger viewers who don’t know what Martha Stewart’s life was like before she hosted dinner parties with Snoop. Maybe there are older viewers who thought that after spending time in the prison deceptively known as Camp Cupcake, Martha Stewart had slipped into an embarrassing obscurity.

These are probably the intended audience for the 115-minute documentary: people impressed enough to be interested in Martha Stewart, but not curious enough to have actively followed her course. It’s a very, very straightforward and linear documentary in which the actual revelations are limited more by your awareness than anything else.

Instead of revelations, however, what does it maintain? Martha engaging is watching Cutler strike and parry with his subject. The prolific documentarian has made films about the likes of Anna Wintour and Dick Cheney, so he knows his stars are prickly, and in Martha Stewart he has a heroine with enough power and a well-earned I-don't-give-a-shit attitude that she will only say exactly what she wants to say in the context in which she wants to say it. Icy when she wants to be, selectively sincere when it suits her purposes, Stewart makes Martha in almost a collaboration: half the story he wants to tell and half the degree to which Cutler believes that story. And the latter, much more than the completely insipid biographical trappings and the mechanical formal approach, is entertaining.

Cutler has put the spotlight squarely on Stewart. Although he conducted many new interviews for the documentary, with friends, colleagues, family members and even a few adversaries, only Stewart gets the on-screen talking head treatment. Everyone else gets to give feedback in audio-only conversations that must have taken place behind the scenes of Martha’s filming over the years, as well as the current access Stewart has given the production at what appears to have been mostly his palatial Turkey Hill farm.

Those “access” scenes, in which Stewart goes about her business without acknowledging the camera, illustrate her overall approach to documentary, which I might summarize as “I’m willing to give you my time, but mostly in my own time.”

At 83 and still busier than almost anyone else on earth, Stewart needs this documentary less than the documentary needs her, and she knows it. Cutler tries to draw her out, including himself pushing Stewart on certain points, like the difference between her husband’s affair, which still angers her, and his contemporary infidelity. When possible, Stewart tries to abstain from being an active part of the more thorny conversations by turning over her correspondence and diary from prison, leaving Cutler to do what he wants with the semi-revealing documents.

“Take it out of your letters,” she orders him after their fruitless chat about the end of her marriage, adding that she simply doesn’t like to gloat over herself.

And Cutler tries, having a voice actor read the letters and diary entries and filling in the visual gaps with meaningless still illustrations.

Just as Stewart has Cutler fill in certain gaps, the director often has viewers read between the lines. In the back-and-forth about their relationships, she mentions talking to Andy, her ex, but Andy is never heard from in the documentary. Take that what you will. And take that what you will that she blames producer Mark Burnett for not understanding her brand on his post-prison daytime show, which may or may not explain Burnett's absence, as well as the decision to treat The Martha Stewart Show as a passing disaster (it actually aired 1,162 episodes in seven seasons) and pretend that The Apprentice: Martha Stewart never existed. The gaps and exclusions are particularly visible in the part of his post-prison life, which can be summed up as “Everything was bad and then he made fun of Justin Bieber and everything was fine.”

At times, Stewart gives the impression of having let his protective veneer slip, as when he says he New York Post reporter covering her trial: “She's dead now, thank goodness. No one has to put up with that shit she was writing.” But that's not to say he's letting anything slip. It's pure, calculated, and utterly ruthless. More often, when Stewart wants to show contempt, he rolls his eyes or stares in Cutler's direction and waits for him to move on. This is pretty gut-wrenching.

Stewart is not a producer on Marthaand I'm sure there are things here that he probably would rather not worry about anymore. But at the same time, you can feel that he's either driving the theme of the documentary or giving Cutler what he needs for his clear theme. Throughout the first half, his desire for perfection is mentioned over and over again, and finally, he stops and sums up the course of his life with “I think imperfection is something you can deal with.”

Watching her interact with Cutler and his staff, there’s no indication that she’s cast aside her exacting standards. Instead, she’s found a calculatedly imperfect version of herself that people like, and she’s perfected it. Which is, as she might say, a good thing.