Martha

The story of how Martha Stewart went from a kitchen in Connecticut to becoming one of the first women in America to build a billion-dollar brand out of housework, and then served a prison sentence after an insider trading case. The film is not interested in summarising a success. It is interested in the price of an idea of perfection: turning the home into a design object, Stewart held her own life to the same standard, and the film shows her inside that exactness. The form is archive-led: home video, television footage and Stewart's own account. The director R. J. Cutler had made single-subject portraits before. The most interesting thing about it turned out to be its subject's reaction. Stewart said she liked the first half and found the rest lazy; that she asked for the closing scenes of her walking hunched in the garden to be cut and the director refused, and that no context was given for the fact that she was recovering from a ruptured Achilles tendon. She also said the ugliest camera angles had been chosen and that she wanted rap on the soundtrack and got a classical score. It went out on Netflix on 30 October 2024. Who it is for: viewers who like business portraits, brand history and celebrity documentary. Who it is not for: anyone expecting a critical account. The film spends a long time on prison and does not look at Stewart's business practices with the same attention.