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The passion of soul singer Sharon Jones comes through in the documentary "Miss Sharon Jones!," though one might wish for more of her music.
The film follows Jones, frontwoman for the blazing R&B band Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, through 2013, when she was forced to take a break from performing to undergo treatment for stage 2 pancreatic cancer. We watch her sit through chemotherapy treatments and hole up in upstate New York with a nutritionist friend who helps nurse her through her illness, while her managers and bandmates worry about whether the next album will come out — and if they can hang on financially in the interim.
Documentarian Barbara Kopple, who has followed the musical careers of Woody Allen ("Wild Man Blues") and the Dixie Chicks ("Shut Up and Sing"), gets intimate footage of Jones through her emotional highs and lows, visiting her old stomping grounds of Augusta, Ga., and enduring the indignities of chemo.
The movie is bookended with Jones and the Dap-Kings performing at her last shows before treatment and her 2014 comeback tour, but fans hoping for the full concert experience will be disappointed.
'Miss Sharon Jones!'
Opens Friday, Sept. 2, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas; not rated, but probably PG-13 for strong language and thematic issues involving cancer; 94 minutes.