by Tim Gordon
Few pop icons loom as large or remain as endlessly debated as Madonna. For four decades, she’s been a provocateur, trailblazer, and reinvention artist whose influence has rippled through music, fashion, and culture at large. Becoming Madonna, a new documentary clocking in at just over 90 minutes, ambitiously tries to bottle up the spark of those transformative early years from 1978, when a hungry 19-year-old arrived in New York with a fistful of dollars and an unstoppable vision, to 1992, when she’d already rewritten the rulebook for women in pop.
Where this documentary shines brightest is in its intimate glimpse of a young woman long before the cone bras, global tours, and million-selling records. It’s here, in the grime and creativity of late-70s and early-80s downtown New York, that Becoming Madonna is most alive. Archival footage shows her fronting scrappy bands like the Breakfast Club and Emmy and the Emmys, hustling through dive bars and cheap recording sessions, testing out looks and sounds like a human laboratory of pop culture. These early clips, raw, hungry, restless, remind us that Madonna was never handed anything: she carved her place out of the city’s punk, disco, and queer club scenes, often with little more than borrowed equipment and boundless nerve.
The film does an admirable job spotlighting her tight-knit circle of early queer friends, the drag queens, dancers, artists, and misfits who helped shape her vision and aesthetic. This part feels vital, and it’s refreshing to see a documentary give credit where it’s due: Madonna didn’t just appropriate the underground; she lived in it, thrived on its radical energy, and carried that subversion to the mainstream. Her bond with these communities gave her the confidence to flip moral panic into marketing gold, a strategy that would become one of her defining traits.
But once Becoming Madonna shifts into the mid-80s, it starts to feel more like a highlight reel than a deep dive. The doc dutifully checks off the milestones: her signing with Sire Records, her breakout hits like Holiday and Like a Virgin, the fever-pitch controversies over Like a Prayer, and her marriage to Sean Penn. There are fascinating tidbits here, especially in behind-the-scenes moments with early managers and producers who recall how fiercely she fought for creative control. You see hints of the steel that would make her the top-selling female artist in history, but too often these details feel rushed, overshadowed by tabloid headlines.
The most glaring choice is where the film decides to stop. By capping the story around 1992, right after the release of her Sex book and Erotica album, the documentary leaves out some of the most compelling chapters of her evolution: her reinvention with Ray of Light, her reinvention again as a global touring powerhouse, her constant tug-of-war with ageism, and her impact on generations of pop stars who’ve followed her blueprint. Was this early “golden period” meant to feel like the most interesting and formative years, or did the filmmakers just bite off only what they could chew in 90 minutes? Either way, the decision shortchanges her ongoing legacy.
And that’s where Becoming Madonna feels both illuminating and frustrating. There’s no denying the thrill of seeing her transformation from an insecure Midwestern misfit into a brash, taboo-breaking megastar. The doc captures the attitude that made Madonna magnetic, the knowing stares into the camera, the gleeful flipping-off of society’s moral gatekeepers. But by focusing so heavily on her persona and erotic provocations, it misses the chance to show the full extent of her artistry: the songwriter who took risks, the visual icon who fused fashion and music videos into art, the woman who turned the industry’s obsession with youth and scandal back on itself.
For devoted fans, the early footage of Emmy and the Emmys and those downtown gigs will feel like a treasure. But for casual viewers, Becoming Madonna might feel like an unfinished portrait, a reminder that this was only the beginning of a story still being written.
Grade: C+
