Love to Love You, Donna Summer

I thought this documentary was great! The filmmakers made great usage of all the archived footage and interviews they had at their disposal. Hearing about Donna Summer's life story and home life was very surprising and introduced so many more layers that I never knew about before. In my opinion, if a documentary does it's job right, it will make you want to look up more information about the artist afterwards. My favorite music documentaries (Searching For Sugarman, A Band Called Death, Zappa, Sinatra: All Or Nothing At All) make you want to look up more about the subject after the film is done. This documentary makes me want to do exactly that, and I love it! If you have a chance to watch this film, do so.

I watched this documentary for the purpose of seeing a glimpse of Donna Summer's off-stage private life. I would have been age 9 when Love to Love You, the song, was released worldwide. As a young person growing up in the 70s and 80s I did not follow the lives of entertainers and still do not as a woman in her mid-50s, so learning about Donna's life peaked my interest because I have an appreciation for her as a performance artist.

Giving the fact that I knew nothing about Ms. Summer's personal life, I can say I did learn some things. Unlike some others who have written reviews, I did not mind all the home footage. Her personal life off stage is why I was drawn to watch the documentary.

What I do have an issue with is the absolutely poor audio/sound mixing. There are segments where a caption will appear that states, "Voice of... (a person's name and their relationship to Donna)," but then nothing is heard. Early on in the film when this first happened, I turned the volume up to a really high level and barely heard the person speaking. This happens throughout the film. I subsequently stopped turning up the volume to hear because then the following audio would come in blasting. There are also instances where the narrator/daughter asks someone a question, but then their answer is not heard. Did no one view the film for possible issues before it was released on HBO Max?

This was hard to watch. There is no substance and no real purpose of this film. It simply glossed over so many topics about her life but never really got into much detail. It was so boring at times that I found myself playing on my phone. I feel like I know nothing more about her than I knew before I watched this. And the editing was horrible.

There are numerous voice overs from family members that you never see in person. That was very annoying. The audio of those off screen voices was so bad, it sounded like they recorded it in a bathroom on a hand held cassette recorder.

I've watched a ton of documentaries and this is certainly one of the worst I've seen. Do yourself a favor...skip this one.

I've been looking forward to seeing this since I first saw the trailer a month ago, and in almost all ways it met my expectations. Donna Summer was the first artist whose music I loved not only because it appealed to me, but because I was intrigued by the person. I started really getting into music at the same time disco and Donna hit it big in 1977-78, she was seemingly always on the radio, and for the next few years I devoured every album she released.

Love to Love You, Donna Summer is a pretty standard (not a bad thing at all) music documentary that definitely benefits from the co-director (Brooklyn Sudano, Donna's daughter)'s trove of home movies, album demos, and photos that really enable the viewer to see the many different sides of Donna. Interviews with her other two daughters and husband, in addition to some of Donna's partners musically and personally, offer additional insight into her too-short life.

The only thing I felt missing was a bit more of an in depth look at her music through the 80's and into the 21st century, but that's just the opinion of the music nerd in me. Ultimately, the doc is a long overdue examination (and love letter of sorts) of an incredibly influential, talented and popular musical force of nature.

Donna Summer had a voice that could make any aspiring singer sit down. Her voice had a resonance that kept you listening. I found this documentary stretched to find a story outside her career that just didn't really do anything to make her legacy shine brighter but rather more of her daughter's search to understand her mother who clearly was exceptionally reserved and not fully connected to her children. Even her love affairs seemed shallow. I found this documentary more discrediting than inspiring. A lot of scenes were flat, lots of unnecessary home video that made me want to turn it off and just stream one of her live performances to remember the bottom line - great voice.