Review: In the generous ‘Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story,’ a support network takes a bow

One of the casualties of an era centered on ring lights over stage lights is the marginalizing of the all-around “performer,” that blood-sweat-and-tears breed who could light up rooms and arenas alike with undeniable talent, passion and sparkling artifice. Anyone can call themselves an artist. But only the well-earned love of audiences makes someone a true performer — of the you-got-it-kid variety — and, at 78, EGOT superstar Liza Minnelli may be one of the last of her kind.

You’d need a serious aversion to showbiz to screw up a documentary about Minnelli’s mission to razzle-dazzle theater crowds, moviegoers and TV viewers with what God (and Judy) gave her. Thankfully, filmmaker Bruce David Klein finds the sweet spot between admirer and honest broker with the warm, engaging tribute biodoc “Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story.”

Minnelli herself is on camera throughout: laughing, reminiscing, breaking into song and (nice to see) looking energized. But these freshly shot segments aren’t the anchor of Klein’s narrative. Rather than assemble a soup-to-nuts tale hamstrung by chronology, he shrewdly offers up her story as an all-star revue about her ascent. He positions Minnelli’s hard-fought stardom emerging from under her mother’s rainbow-shaped shadow as a collaboration with many caring mentors — adoring champions and friends who saw gifts too real to be denied.

And what mentors! Kay Thompson played mother and confidante, Charles Aznavour taught her song-acting, Bob Fosse streamlined her movement, lyricist Fred Ebb drew inspiration from her, and she was a fashion muse for Halston. They may not be around anymore, but their archival presence here, along with historical context from longtime pal Michael Feinstein (the movie’s dominant interviewee), paints a picture of love, toil and glamour from the ’60s onward that is privileged in its peek at backstage emotional support in an unforgiving business. Minnelli was the perfect talent for a vulnerable new age, projecting strength and fragility equally with those gams, eyelashes and belted feelings.

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Sure, being Judy Garland’s daughter gets you a courtesy look — and, from Mama, inklings of jealousy — but a decade that takes somebody from a teenage Tony (“Flora the Red Menace”) to a 20-something Oscar (“Cabaret”) and Emmy (for the incredible special “Liza With a Z”) to cover-model status, only happens when you’re working harder than anyone else. (The movie’s chapter headings, on the other hand, quotes taken from key learning curves in Minnelli’s life, veer a little too close to the kinds of cheesy titles you see on quickie memoirs: “Don’t Go Around With People You Don’t Like” and “Not Everything Has to Be a National Anthem.”)

The handling of childhood, marriages, lovers and addictions are where you can sense a velvet rope being gently pulled in front — we get glimpses but nothing too deep, save the reminder that being public about her struggles also made her an honesty icon as well as a red-sequined one. Those famous sequins, by the way, were Halston’s genius move to hide her perspiration, just as Thompson’s larger-than-life friendship helped hide her grief after her mom’s death, and Fosse’s choreography thrillingly deflected a self-consciousness about her scoliosis. It’s no wonder, in that world of savvy deflection, she knew how to make denial a powerful tool on the bullet train to triumph.

And yet inside the insanity of a famous It girl’s breathless ups and downs, beyond the fascinating history that “Liza” delightfully unravels, there’s a comforting takeaway: the warmth and respect with which friends and loved ones old and new — Feinstein, Ben Vereen, Mia Farrow, John Kander, Darren Criss — talk about her on camera. What “Liza” touchingly suggests is those people are life’s real EGOT.