Honestly, before I went to see Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It, I didn’t know a whole lot about actress Rita Moreno. I knew she’s had a long career and she’s still working. I knew she got an Oscar for West Side Story. And…that’s about it. However, much like with The Sparks Brothers, seeing a documentary like this one is a good way to learn a thing or two about the subject if the documentary itself is actually good.
As it is, the documentary is rather good, so now I know a whole lot more about Rita Moreno. I’m glad that I do.
Opening with shots of the actress preparing her home for her own 87th birthday party, the documentary goes through her life and times the way one would expect it to, starting with her childhood in Puerto Rico until her mother moved the two of them to New York City, leaving behind other family members including a brother that she says she never saw again. From a young age, Rita was interested in entertaining and loved being the center of attention, and she managed to get signed by Louis B. Mayer to a contract that was the start of her acting career, mostly playing foreign girls from a wide variety of countries. From there, her career went in a number of different directions, though the documentary only makes her career a part of the focus.
Indeed, the focus here is on Moreno herself. Sure, it takes time to discuss her most famous roles, particularly West Side Story, but that’s all part of the greater narrative at work here. Her career is only part of who she is. So, instead of focusing on her work, it focuses on her thoughts on her work as well as what other people appearing in the film have to say about it, ranging from former costars and individuals who were inspired by her in different ways. Moreno is a woman who loved to perform, and some of the things she said in the movie about herself and her career surprised me. Like, I didn’t know she won her first Emmy for, of all things, The Muppet Show, or that it was an experience she genuinely enjoyed more than many.
As it is, there’s a side to Moreno that she talks about, one that probably pushed in many of the directions she ended up going in. One of the reoccurring themes to the film is that, deep down, she had a side that was still her as a young girl with an overwhelming desire to please people, a side that had her essentially agreeing to things that, in hindsight, she wishes she hadn’t but may not have had other options for at the time. Today, she’s outspoken and fierce, but she’s not a simple person. Her thoughts on her on-again, off-again relationship with Marlon Brando or even her thoughts on her own longtime late husband were anything but simple. Moreno came around at a time when Hollywood actors weren’t necessarily likely to become political activists like they are today, so in that she was also a trailblazer.
And that is what I really liked about this documentary. A good documentary should teach the viewer something about the subject, and I knew so little about Moreno that much of what I saw was a bit surprising to me. That was something that bothered me a bit about The Sparks Brothers. I may have learned a lot about their music and art, something I did appreciate, but I didn’t learn much about them. After The Sparks Brothers, I walked away with some appreciation for some music I didn’t have a lot of familiarity with. After Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It, I walked away feeling a bit in awe of Rita Moreno as a person. And as a result, I appreciated her documentary just a bit more.
Grade: A
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