If you were alive in the s, an awareness of Liza Minnelli probably feels hard-coded into your DNA. For gay men, who found in her a similar connection as they had found in her mother — an earnest, genuinely positive spirit attempting to navigate a complicated life and find a place of her own in a world that viewed such enthusiasm with skepticism and judgmental disdain — she became more than just a star.
She was a free spirit who, in her struggle to overcome expectation and assert her own unique stamp on the world, became not only easily relatable, but a kindred spirit. Eschewing any attempt at a comprehensive career retrospective, it puts the focus on the story of her life, and the pluckier-than-expected Liza emerges with a canny and self-aware authenticity, complemented by enough hard-earned comfort in her own skin to not only hook a built-in audience of lifelong worshipers but win over a whole new crowd of acolytes.
Instead, the film and its still precocious year-old star choose instead to turn their attention toward celebrating the various key collaborators with whom her career became symbiotically entwined. Brassy, generous, endlessly and authentically positive even when discussing the various missteps and low points that have marked her career, her extensive screen time gives her plenty of opportunity to show us that, even after a lifetime of struggling against scoliosis, bodily injury, and a well-publicized addiction to prescription drugs, the Liza we all know and love — endlessly positive, big-hearted, effusive in her praise of others and her appreciation for life, with a song or a show-biz story never far from her lips nor her heart — is exactly who she really is.
That she is able to exude the same high spirited enthusiasm that has always been her trademark, despite the obvious toll exacted upon her by the years and the health challenges she has weathered, only makes us love her all the more.
The result admittedly plays like a love letter, an effect underscored by the universally glowing comments from famous friends and fans interviewed oncreen, from the late Chita Rivera to gushing fanboy Darren Criss, as well as in the plentiful archival footage of her career highlights. If the subject were anyone but Liza Minnelli, one might almost suspect this glossy, entertaining portrait of trying to whitewash its subject — instead, it comes off not just as a well-deserved tribute, but a welcome reminder that she is, and always was, a force to be reckoned with.
