That last part is crucial, as well as a source of confusion. Now 47 and a married mother of three, Morissette is still as charismatic and quick-witted as ever. She still has the same accessibility and self-deprecating humor that allow her to connect instantly with her audience. She’s the one taking us on a tour of her own story. And with the exception of a couple of brief detours in darker directions, “Jagged” is singularly celebratory. As in recent documentaries about Michelle Obama, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, J. Balvin, the late John Lewis and many others, the access to these major cultural figures translates into films that are so positive, they border on infomercials. “Jagged” isn’t quite so fawning, but it features only voices of praise.
Which is why it’s so perplexing that Morissette has denounced “Jagged,” releasing a statement before its Toronto International Film Festival world premiere in September that she wouldn’t promote or support the film. What we’re seeing is not the story she agreed to tell, she said, calling it reductive and saying it contains some falsehoods (although she hasn’t specified what those might have been). “I sit here now experiencing the full impact of having trusted someone who did not warrant being trusted,” she said of Klayman, whose previous work includes the documentaries “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry” and “The Brink” about former Trump strategist Steve Bannon. She says Klayman interviewed her during a vulnerable time, and that she had a salacious agenda.
Seeing the finished product, though, it seems Klayman’s agenda was to remind us of what a thrilling, groundbreaking album Jagged Little Pill was a quarter century ago, and to inform us that Morissette remains a badass to this day.
We see the artist’s beginnings as a perky ‘80s pop star, complete with crimped hair and acid-washed jeans, writing her own songs and winning talent competitions at just 10 years old. Gen X kids get to revisit her role as part of that after-school sketch-comedy staple, “You Can’t Do That On Television.” But recording, touring, and shooting music videos with little supervision at age 15 placed her in several unsafe situations with predatory, older men in the industry, and Morissette recalls the statutory rape she now recognizes she suffered. “I’m gonna need some help because I never talk about this shit,” she confesses in a rare uncomfortable moment. Perhaps this is the content she’s objecting to in retrospect. No one from her family appears in the film, aside from long-ago snippets.
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