Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Last Movie Stars’ On HBO Max, A Paul Newman And Joanne Woodward Documentary Directed By Ethan Hawke

The Last Movie Stars is a six-part docuseries, directed by Ethan Hawke, that examines the long, seemingly harmonious marriage of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Both acclaimed actors, their union lasted for 50 years, from 1958 until Newman’s death in 2008. But, as Hawke starts to examine in the first episode, this is a relationship that has had the same ups and downs as every other long-term relationship, much of it fueled by their unique places in the spotlight.

THE LAST MOVIE STARS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid flickers on a movie screen as director Ethan Hawke talks about how he saw the film one day as a kid instead of going to church, and “the movies became my church of choice.”

The Gist: The first episode discusses how the two of them met in 1953, when both were in a Broadway production of Picnic. As both of their careers took their respective turns in the 1950s, the two of them were already being seen as Hollywood’s it couple, even though Newman was still married to Jackie McDonald, with whom he had his first three children. Woodward’s movie career exploded in the ’50s, with her earning an Oscar for The Three Faces Of Eve in 1958, while Newman struggled with getting leading roles that had some meat to them, and even admitting that he sometimes his acting was less naturalistic than others. By the time they got married in 1958, though, his career was also starting to take off.

The first episode is as much about Hawke’s process of putting this film together as it is about the couple. As part of a memoir project, Newman had screenwriter Stewart Stern interview him and dozens of others — including Woodward and McDonald — but Newman supposedly burned those recordings in the early 1990s after abandoning the project. However, Stern had the interviews transcribed; when handed boxes of transcripts by the couple’s children, Hawke had to figure out how to use them.

Through Zoom talks with the people he interviewed as well as the acting friends he involved in the project, he managed to get lots of people to read the various transcripts. George Clooney plays Newman, while Laura Linney plays Woodward; Brooks Ashmanskas plays their friend Gore Vidal; Vincent D’Onofrio plays Karl Malden; Zoe Kazan plays Jackie McDonald. He has many more actors, including his daughter Maya, playing roles throughout the series.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Last Movie Stars could fit in with many documentaries about Hollywood, like The Kid Stays In The Picture and Becoming Mike Nichols, though this series feels like it’s on the more self-indulgent side of a genre that’s already pretty self-indulgent.

Our Take: The Last Movie Stars gives us a lot to take in, and a lot to parse out as far as how we feel about the viewing experience. As an examination of a marriage, especially one that was in the public eye for a half a century, Hawke has done as great job of culling the information he was given and laying out the story of the Newman-Woodward marriage, warts and all.  With the discussion of how the romance leading up to their marriage was fraught with professional jealousy and personal infidelity, Hawke sets up the idea that, despite the idealistic view of their marriage, they had to work like every other couple to make it last.

It also serves as a good overview to both of their careers, which are extensive. That alone would justify the multiple parts. Both are Oscar winners, and both had long, productive acting careers, and deserve a multi-hour examination on their separate careers, the projects they did together, their philanthropy, and their successful marriage.

But here’s where the parsing begins. While we give Hawke a lot of credit for getting some perspective on how Newman’s affair with Woodward affected Jackie McDonald, via the transcript with McDonald herself and interviews with their daughter Stephanie Newman, it still feels like not enough gravity was given to the fact that this relationship tore his family apart.

Also, we give Hawke a tip of the hat for figuring out just how to utilize the thousands of transcript pages he was faced with, given that the original recordings don’t exist. But are we ready for six hours of hearing Clooney as Newman, interspersed with plenty of video and audio of Newman himself? It’s not like we’re hearing someone doing an impression of Newman; it’s Clooney’s very famous voice speaking for the equally famous Newman. Same with Linney as Woodward; those two voices are the ones we’re going to be hearing the most.

If we get to a point in the docuseries where we’re not distracted by this, as well as the very Hawke-centric Zoom interviews he does throughout — he put this together during the height of the pandemic — then Hawke will have done what he set out to do. But at the end of the first episode, these still feel like distracting gadgetry.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: As we see photos and press coverage of Newman and Woodward’s 1958 wedding and home movies of early trips they took together, we hear from Woodward’s mom Frances (Karen Allen) talk about how Newman promised Woodward’s father to never mistreat or ignore the three children he had with McDonald.

Sleeper Star: It’s interesting how some of the actors who read did so in their regular voices, while some tried to figure out what the person they were assigned sounded like. Some did out-and-out impressions, and Ashmanskas’s impression of Gore Vidal was spot on.

Most Pilot-y Line: Listen, we get why Hawke did the Zoom interviews; it’s likely as much for logistical reasons as much as it was for COVID-related reasons. But seeing those little boxes with people’s names in them for six episodes is going to be a real distraction.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Despite the self-indulgent aspects of The Last Movie Stars, Ethan Hawke has created a fascinating docuseries about one of the biggest Hollywood power couples ever, as well as the issues that defined their marriage.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.