A Boring Ani DiFranco Doc

You recognize you’re losing time on a documentary whenever you really feel the urge to Wikipedia its topic when you’re in the course of watching a complete function movie dedicated to them. And as soon as I had completed Dana Flor’s tedious music biodoc 1-800-ON-HER-OWN, I oddly felt like I knew even much less about folk-rock legend Ani DiFranco than I did going into it. At a mere 80 minutes, the movie ought to no less than come throughout as tight and succinct (and chock full of knowledge). As a substitute, the narrative largely facilities DiFranco’s muted pandemic years — had been they attention-grabbing for anybody? — and presents solely a surface-level retelling of her rise to prominence within the Nineteen Nineties, her improvements as an artist-entrepreneur and her songwriting prowess.

It’s exhausting to not examine 1-800-ON-HER-OWN to extra compelling punkumentaries about defiant feminine musicians of the 90s, together with It’s Solely Life After All (2023), a deeply introspective examination of the Indigo Women, and L7: Faux We’re Lifeless (2016), a pure-at-heart hangout flick consisting largely of archival footage from the band’s touring heyday. Regardless of these docs’ opposing filmmaking types (a narrative advised largely by means of interview versus a narrative advised largely by means of montage), they’re nonetheless capable of impart one thing significant about these artists who resisted “rock chick” stereotypes.

In distinction, except for joyfully showcasing DiFranco’s ever-changing trend selections throughout her prime — from buzz cuts to cerulean dreadlocks to platinum blonde coifs — 1-800-ON-HER-OWN doesn’t precisely permit us to revel within the years that made DiFranco a cult celebrity. We barely even be taught what drew her to music and songwriting to start with.

Now, Flor doesn’t fake DiFranco is a few music trade martyr the way in which Sinead O’Connor is framed in 2022’s Nothing Compares: Fashionable-day DiFranco is the primary to confess her regrets and errors as a spouse, guardian, musician and businesswoman. In truth, her candid reflections imbue the movie with a particular dreariness as she recounts the naïve/idealistic enterprise dealings of her youthful years which have led her to feeling broke in her 50s. (The tragedy of enhancing has us watch modern DiFranco complain about having no cash just a few moments earlier than her 20-something self in outdated interview footage eschews the capitalistic want for cash.) Present-day DiFranco is evidently bitter that she continues to wish to tour to earn money, particularly as she briefly alludes to the truth that the grueling nature of street life contributes to her marital strife and retains her away from her youngsters throughout important instances of their growth. In different phrases, she resents nonetheless having to strum for her supper.  

My chief disappointment with the movie stems from its incohesive biography. We’re handled to a couple obscure information in regards to the topic’s origins in Buffalo, New York, and her relationship together with her apparently distant First Wave feminist mom. But it’s all advised in such coded language and generalities that I used to be by no means certain what I used to be supposed to remove from the scant info we do obtain about her upbringing and early profession. We’re aware of extra direct historical past of the impartial file label she cofounded at age 20 in 1990, Righteous Babe Information (which spawned the previous real-life telephone variety of the movie’s title), however the movie gives negligible incisive commentary on DiFranco’s expertise or what makes her socially aware exhausting people music so attractive to followers.

A lot of the movie is spent with a mature DiFranco just a bit bit earlier than after which through the COVID-19 pandemic, when she connects with a Bon Iver songwriting retreat/program to learn to collaborate with others through the writing course of. A fiercely impartial artist, she admits that partnership throughout album growth is a weak spot she’s desperate to grasp. Narrative time that might be spent additional elucidating DiFranco’s early stardom and sui generis presents is as a substitute squandered on boring scenes of her making an attempt to make this new endeavor profitable. It’s a sleep.

She’s mildly shocked when somebody from that enterprise confesses their dynamic isn’t working for both of them, implying that maybe she’s too snug in her individuality to successfully work in partnership to create an album in spite of everything. Finally, although, she releases her 2021 studio file Revolutionary Love to important acclaim. I’m completely happy for DiFranco’s accomplishment whereas acknowledging that the visible doc depicting it isn’t precisely one itself.