Jane Fonda in Five Acts

It’s hard to overstate the pleasures of this film or, more precisely, this encounter with its subject.

Throughout, the documentary offers glowing praise of Fonda that falls just short of fawning. Frankly, it’s difficult not to be impressed. Seventy-eight at the time of filming, the formidable Fonda personifies courage and strength in her interviews, even as she reveals tremendous vulnerabilities.

Hers is a lot of life to try to capture in one movie, but Jane Fonda in Five Acts certainly covers her emotional arc with thoroughness and compassion.

Fonda’s own interviews are candid and insightful. Her regrets about the way she allowed herself to be used by the North Vietnamese are sincere but practiced.

All in all, Jane Fonda in Five Acts proves a captivating, extremely well-told and crafted, decidedly fitting tribute to a Hollywood legend, fighter and survivor who just might surprise us one day with a “sixth act.”

Lively, confessional, and entertaining.

Notwithstanding the talking-head commentary of friends, colleagues and exes, this is very much a first-person story, taking its narrative cues from Fonda's self-searching 2005 autobiography.