Synopsis
Janis Joplin's evolution into a star from letters that Joplin wrote over the years to her friends, family, and collaborators.
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Cast
- Janis JoplinHerself (archive footage)
- Cat PowerNarrator (voice)
- D. A. PennebakerHimself
- Dick CavettHimself
- Peter AlbinHimself
- Karleen BennettHerself - Janis Joplin's childhood friend
- Laura JoplinHerself - Janis Joplin's sister
- Michael JoplinHimself - Janis Joplin's brother
Recommendations
- 88
Movie Nation
A terrific film, not as moving or damning as this year’s Amy Winehouse expose, but a warm piece of cinematic scholarship. - 83
The A.V. Club
Whenever the story starts to drag, Berg cuts to a scene like Big Brother’s era-defining performance of “Ball And Chain” at Monterey, which had even Los Angeles’ prematurely jaded rock superstars gaping in justified awe. They knew they were watching something explosive, in a package too fragile to contain it. - 80
Variety
Berg’s film is no stylistic innovator itself, but it’s the satisfying feature-length overview that Joplin’s brief, fiercely brilliant career has long merited. - 80
Time Out
Amy Berg’s deeply sympathetic documentary on Janis Joplin — a singer whose shredded wail tapped reservoirs of pain — gets so much right, it feels like a major act of cultural excavation. - 75
The Playlist
While aesthetically it doesn’t do much to break the form, it more than succeeds in presenting Joplin as a flawed, insecure, deeply brilliant woman who, unfortunately, couldn’t shake her demons. - 75
Slant Magazine
It grounds us so effectively in Joplin's emotional realm as to partially rekindle the social transcendence that her voice must have represented for its owner. - 70
The Hollywood Reporter
While there are numerous dynamite performance clips, Berg's film is generally more revealing on a personal level than as an appreciation of her music. - 60
CineVue
Berg's Little Girl Blue inevitably concentrates on the tragic parabola of the life without fully getting to the heart of the art.
