I Am Woman

A revelation in her 2014 debut 52 Tuesdays and the following year’s The Kettering Incident TV series, the South Australian actor here delivers an emotional and memorable turn that the sludgy script almost scarcely deserves.

I Am Woman is a start in the right direction. However, based on this film you might think that the most interesting thing about Reddy is that she married her manager who then got addicted to cocaine. It's a frustratingly shallow approach to a singer who deserves better.

It is a lean and likeable, if slight and a little trite, celebration of the legendary Australian-American singer, feminist and anthem-creator Helen Reddy, shot with a rich neo-noirish texture by Oscar-winning cinematographer Dion Beebe.

Helen Reddy might seem so 1970s, but her song "I Am Woman" became a feminist anthem of its time, and serves as the title and centerpiece of a reasonably good movie biography, if one that -- perhaps due to the nature of her life -- feels a little like the Hallmark Channel version of "Bohemian Rhapsody."

I’d have been curious to see more about Reddy’s interactions with the women’s movement, but the film mostly has room for this one woman. Thanks to Cobham-Hervey’s performance, it’s an engaging, if fairly familiar, story.

Unjoo Moon's energetic and empathetic look at the rise of the "I Am Woman" singer has cliches to spare, but it's also got a high-note performance from its lead.

This pedestrian biopic doesn't really convey the distinctiveness of Reddy's appeal, let alone package it in a way likely to trigger a significant revival of interest in a major star largely forgotten now.

The movie's considerable appeal is more unassuming, derived from the respect and affection of director Unjoo Moon's treatment and especially from the relaxed charisma of Tilda Cobham-Hervey's empathetic lead performance.