Review at a glance
An arty, sometimes frustrating, mostly fabulous portrait of the iconoclastic, sixtysomething singer. If you’ve read her 2015 memoir, the documentary will be low on revelations.
But Grace Jones’s intelligence, integrity and vulnerability come through as never before. We find her swimming in a lake in Jamaica looking beautiful and unselfconscious (she always looks beautiful; what is rare is to see her face in repose).
Such moments are captured on video; by contrast, Jones’s still-startling performances are caught on film. Director Sophie Fiennes spent years shooting and editing the footage (at the end, we see Jones the singer cradling her baby grand-daughter; said baby is now eight years old).
I’m glad Fiennes kept in the bit where Jones’s prim and proper mother (who has since died) sings in church. Marjorie Jones has a voice as high as her daughter’s is deep (the word caterwauling springs to mind). What’s revealing is the proud expression on Jones’s face as she watches her mother. The Eighties superstar, happy to share the spotlight, looks cooler than ever.