Martha

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The Reel Review

B+

The rise, fall and resurgence of trailblazing home design icon Martha Stewart, America’s first self-made female billionaire, is profiled in this Netflix documentary, in which Stewart also shares details from her five-month prison sentence in 2005 for obstructing justice during an investigation of insider stock trading.

After a quick recap of Stewart’s not-so-ideal childhood and evolution as a model, stockbroker and then caterer, documentary filmmaker RJ Cutler (Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry, The War Room) delves into Stewart’s incredible success in the world of magazine publishing and television. Not surprisingly, Stewart is portrayed as a shrewd businesswoman – a prickly perfectionist who demands the same from others. Some of the blistering one-liners from Stewart during a sit-down interview for the documentary support that.

With access to Stewart’s diaries and letters, the film highlights a history of marital infidelity, her disdain for being a mother and feeling trapped in her TV show that she had begrudgingly agreed to do for seven years following her time in prison. Most of the documentary’s second half focuses on Stewart’s time in prison and the subsequent rebuilding of her empire, which evolved after an unconventional appearance on an MTV roast of Justin Bieber. Martha is a solid documentary with a revealing look inside the mind of this complicated entrepreneur.

REEL FACTS

• Martha Stewart has criticized the Netflix documentary, saying the second half was lazy, focusing too heavily on her prison sentence. She has also criticized the director’s choice of classical music for the score (she wanted rapper Dr. Dre to score the film) and including unflattering camera angles of her in its finale.

• Billionaire Charles Simonyi, the inventor of Microsoft Office, married Lisa Persdotter, the daughter of a Swedish millionaire, in 2008. They have two daughters.

• In a 2018 interview, James Comey acknowledged that he almost did not prosecute Martha Stewart because he knew that he and the Department of Justice would face public backlash over such a comparatively minor issue.