Through archival footage of performances, interviews, and home videos, as well as testimony from family, “Love to Love You, Donna Summer” outlines not only the highs of her career, but also her troubles as a woman, a mother, and a newfound star.
The strength of the film is its heart, and Summer’s relationships are used not only narratively, but structurally. With frequent narration from Summer’s daughters, and a heavy focus on their childhoods with a loving but distant mother, their desire to understand her beyond her parenthood and into her personhood is the the movie’s foundation.
Equally important is the influence of Summer’s Black womanhood. We see her life as she toes the spectrum from adolescent beginnings in Boston with her religious family to her eventual blossoming as a beacon of unabashed sensuality in the American disco scene. Everything in between is a series of passion and perseverance against the odds. Summer constantly stepped out of societal boxes of expectation with bold determination—she embraced sex in spite of her upbringing and fully and shamelessly championing her identity as the power it was, in spite of being seen as a novelty.
“Love to Love You, Donna Summer” uses her iconic songs to display career benchmarks, as well as her ability to maintain relevance through changing times. Her hit “Love to Love You” emphasized her openness and lean into the sexual culture of the ‘70s, and “She Works Hard for the Money” brazenly pointed a finger at her own label (whom she famously sued for absent payments for her work) while beating in the hearts of the working women of the 1980s. However, amidst these peaks of her life, we’re also exposed to the pressures she endured. Her fame uplifted her just as much as it tore her down, with the constant attention and influences of the industry burying her atop a pedestal—a plaguing dichotomy.