Solid if Basic Hulu Doc

It’s a familiar routine: Famous person dies and each network’s news division works quickly to cobble together (or finish off) a tribute special that answers a few basic questions — “Why was this person significant?” mostly — in a satisfying way that can be delivered within days of the death.

Tribute packages like that aren’t really “documentaries,” but they serve a valuable purpose for grieving or simply curious fans.

The problem with Jackie Jesko’s new documentary Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything, premiering at Tribeca ahead of a Hulu launch, is that for much of its 95-minute run, it feels exactly like one of those immediately posthumous overviews.

Especially in its first half, Tell Me Everything tries to emulate the iconic television journalist by guiding audiences through basic information, and eventually asking the tough questions, or at least touching on provocative issues. But it only rarely pushes deeper than hero worship.

The conceit of letting Walters’ own interview tactics steer the documentary isn’t a bad one, but as executed here, it isn’t interesting either, which is a pity since Walters was absolutely interesting. The doc showcases Walters’ approach use of seemingly basic questions to set her subjects at ease before sneaking in the blunt or pointed queries. But since Jesko isn’t actually talking to Walters, it’s hard to know whom she thinks she’s setting at ease and to what end.

The first half of the documentary traces Walters’ path from childhood to her early reporting endeavors to her time at Today and then ABC Evening News. Jesko takes us through the sexism Walters experienced along the way — one condescending male nemesis after another — before ABC gave her the chance to do the long-form TV interviews that helped an industry find a then-unprecedented blurring of lines between celebrity and news.

She interviewed presidents, dictators and actors, and the footage is exceptional, if familiar. Walters sitting awkwardly with Harry Reasoner at the ABC Evening News desk. Walters sitting far less awkwardly with Anwar al-Sadat and Menachem Begin. Walters sitting amiably with the likes of Bette Midler and Clint Eastwood. The interviews with various producers/colleagues, plus Midler as a representative of the tier of stars Walters was both friendly and professional with, are decent. But two-plus years after Walters’ death, there’s nothing here that indicates a deeper understanding courtesy of the passing of time or the presence of these particular talking heads.

In the second half of the documentary, things get significantly better, as we follow Walters into her peak years and get some insights from figures like Katie Couric, Oprah Winfrey and Connie Chung, who followed in Walters’ footsteps. There are interesting sections on Walters’ famous Rolodex, the competitiveness of interview booking in the ’80s and ’90s, and a fantastic segment on Walters’ famous sit-down with Monica Lewinsky, featuring memories from Lewinsky and from Winfrey, who thought she had the interview herself only for Walters to sneak in and snag it. A bunch of people who aren’t Diane Sawyer spend a lot of time circling the nature of the Sawyer/Walters rivalry.

Sawyer, however, is not present, which is a running theme when it comes to the most difficult topics on the documentary’s plate. Jesko knows the stories she needs to tell, but she doesn’t necessarily have the interviews that she needs to tell them properly. Sawyer’s absence is a big deal given how crucial the documentary believes that dynamic to be. Walters’ frequently estranged daughter Jacqueline isn’t here, either, which is a big deal given how the thesis of the film ends up being “Walters chose her career over love and over family.”

The handling of the rest of Walters’ personal life is left to people without direct personal knowledge, so there’s completely hollow speculation about what was or wasn’t happening in the relationship (or “relationship”) between Walters and Roy Cohn — one of those odd facts that many people already know, but will blow a few minds — or her multiple marriages to Merv Adelson, who isn’t even mentioned. Instead, we’re taking a lot of personal details on faith from Cindy Adams — whose presence and expertise are at least explicable given her stature as an iconic gossip columnist — and from a makeup artist whose exact role in Walters’ life is never explained. (That makeup artist, Lori Klein, worked with Walters for 29 years. I know this from press notes, not the documentary.)

The most emotionally affecting piece of Tell Me Everything isn’t even from Tell Me Everything. The parade of female journalists who appeared on Walters’ last episode of The View is presented in full, and it somehow provides, without resorting to voiceover or analysis, an efficient overview of Walters’ cultural impact far more potent than anything the doc contributes on its own.

I think it’s clear-eyed and reasonable for a documentary about any hard-working figure to follow its story to a conclusion of “Can you have it all? No. But here’s why that’s OK.” Would you ever get a documentary about a male figure asking the same question? Certainly not. And does Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything fully interrogate its own conclusions? Not really. It’s a simple and respectful documentary that, had it come out a month after Walters’ death, would have made its point decently. It’s in taking that step back and using the distance afforded by time for something more substantive that it falls short.