Taglines: The Helen Reddy Story and the song that inspired a revolution.
I Am Woman Movie Storyline. 1966. Helen Reddy arrives in New York with her three-year-old daughter, a suitcase and $230 in her pocket. She had been told she’d won a recording contract, but the record company promptly dashes her hopes by telling her it has enough female stars and suggests she has fun in New York before returning home to Australia. Helen, without a visa, decides to stay in New York anyway and pursue a singing career, struggling to make ends meet and provide for her daughter.
There she befriends legendary rock journalist Lillian Roxon, who becomes her closest confident. Lillian inspires her to write and sing the iconic song “I Am Woman” which becomes the anthem for the second wave feminist movement and galvanises a generation of women to fight for change. She also meets Jeff Wald, a young aspiring talent manager who becomes her agent and husband. Jeff helps her get to the top, but he also suffers from a drug addiction, which gradually turns their relationship toxic. Caught in the treadmill of fame and dependent on Jeff to manage her professional life, Helen finds the strength to take control of her own career and keep pursuing her dreams.
I Am Woman is a 2019 Australian biographical film about singer Helen Reddy, directed and produced by Unjoo Moon, from a screenplay by Emma Jensen. Tilda Cobham-Hervey stars as Reddy alongside Evan Peters, as her manager husband Jeff Wald, and Danielle Macdonald as rock writer Lilian Roxon.
Reddy lives in a care facility in LA and her family advised the filmmakers on the project. Moon said she felt great responsibility to Helen to ensure the story was told sensitively: “Before we locked the movie off, Producer Rosemary Blight (Goalpost Pictures) and I felt very strongly that we needed to show the movie to Helen and her family. We did a screening for Helen, her ex-husband Jeff Wald, and her two children.
As a filmmaker, sitting in the cinema with Helen Reddy was, and it’s probably going to be, one of the hardest screenings I had to do for the film. I suddenly realised that this is her life and she was watching it through my eyes. During the screening, Helen sang along to her songs, and when she cried, it wasn’t because she was sad that we made the movie, she cried because she found the whole experience so touching, and I think really cathartic in a way.”
Screen Australia is the principle investor in the film, alongside Cowlick Entertainment, and arts body Create NSW, with further funding from the Goodship Women’s Fund, which supports films with strong social change messaging.
I Am Woman (2020)
Directed by: Unjoo Moon
Starring: Evan Peters, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Danielle Macdonald, Matty Cardarople, Jordan Raskopoulos, Maddison-Cleo Musumeci, Molly Broadstock, Gus Murray, Rita Rani Ahuja
Screenplay by: Emma Jensen
Production Design by: Michael Turner
Cinematography by: Dion Beebe
Film Editing by: Dany Cooper
Costume Design by: Emily Seresin
Set Decoration by: Richie Dehne, Laetitia Gangotena
Art Direction by: Marianne Evans, Peter ‘Babylon’ Owens
Music by: Rafael May
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Quiver Distribution
Release Date: August 28, 2020 (Australia)
Visits: 3939
