The script is often from Bergman's own diaries and letters, and portions of the footage are from home videos. Bergman's four children, all of whom are alive, are interviewed.
Gorgeous, shy, nice, and hard-working, she found immediate success as a young actress in Sweden and Germany before Hollywood came calling in 1939. Her first film as the female lead in Intermezzo was a critical and commercial hit. Her fortune continued with female lead roles in Casablanca (1942), Gaslight (1944), The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), and Notorious (1946).
Although a similar event wouldn't raise eyebrows today, it was a major scandal in America when she left her husband and daughter to marry Italian director Roberto Rossellini. She appeared in his films for five years. They divorced, and she returned to America as the lead in Anastasia (1956), which earned her second Best Actress Oscar.
She remained a star until the end, appearing in the television biography A Woman Called Golda in 1982, the year of her death. Her performance earned an Emmy Award for Best Actress.
The documentary does not focus on her career on film and stage. It is instead about her family life. Her children were well cared for, but she was seldom around, as she pursued roles across America and Europe. But her kids have nothing bad to say about her, since she was kind to them whenever she was around. Her second child, Isabella Rossellini, followed in her footsteps to become a well-known actress.
How others will see it. Currently streaming on Max, the film won an audience award at Cannes. At imdb.com, it is popular, with a fairly high user rating of 7.4 (out of 10) and a respectable (for a documentary) user vote total of 2.6K.
Most of the user reviews are positive, but there are a few who wanted the movie to be more about her career, and less about how her children saw her, or how many directors she slept with.
How I felt about it. The film answers some riddles about Bergman's life. How could such a nice, ingratiating beauty get divorced three times? Because she was restless. She needed the challenge provided by a role that she couldn't get where she was. When she saw the Roberto Rossellini movie Rome, Open City (1945), she ditched Hollywood and her husband, tracked Rossellini down, married him, and appeared in his films.
Out of sight is out of mind, and like many actresses then and now, she began a new romance in her new surroundings. But she never became estranged from her children from prior marriages. They have fond memories of her, and appear to have lived happy lives. They had fewer problems than their mother, who was publicly castigated for her infidelity and endured a decade-long struggle with cancer.
Bergman met with success all of her life, with the exception of her five star-crossed years with Roberto Rossellini. Her father filmed her incessantly when she was a child, and she grew up comfortable behind a camera. Her looks and charm belied her dedication to her craft, and her formidable skill as an actress. She did argue with her directors, but they did not complain, since she only sought to improve her performance.