Karen Carpenter: Starving for Perfection

The majority of my teenage and young adult years were strongly influenced by The Carpenters. I was a die-hard fan and when "Superstar" was released, I must have listened to it until I warped the record (the single, that is).

Because I was also a musician and songwriter, and because I grew up in Southern California and went to CSULB (the same university that the Carpenters attended), and studied with the same choir and so many other connections, the Carpenters have always loomed large in my life.

When Karen died at the age of 32, I literally could not process it. I thought, "How could someone so young, with the promise of everything possible, die?"

We all learned a lot more about anorexia nervosa than we wanted to, as a result of her death, but it's good that we did, because we could become aware of the signs in others that might have chosen to go down the same tragic path that Karen did.

This documentary does a great job of taking us through Karen's life via some very important people in her orbit: Olivia Newton-John, Carol Burnett, Cubby O'Brien, Suzanne Sommers, and many, many more who knew her, worked with her and/or worked for A&M records. Because I lived through that era, everything these people said rang true. The only person this production could not get was Richard Carpenter, but I feel this documentary was made with the utmost respect and someone must have okayed it, since there were a fair number of recordings (i.e. Telephone messages, interviews, etc.) that had previously not been made public.

I teared up at the end, thinking of the great loss of this musical giant and of all the other amazing songs she would have sung had she lived.

This is not an easy watch, but for fans, it is essential.

If you were a Carpenters fan,

This is a very good documentary about Karen Carpenter, but don't expect to learn anything new about her life and death. Yes, it may have some interview tapes never heard before, but they are only snippets of conversations. Many of the pictures of the singer are definitely ones seen before, but many may be new to viewers.

The film is filled with talking heads, some more beneficial than others. Carnie Wilson is one of the main commentators because she is the executive producer. Some may feel she should not have been such a prominent talking head, since she never knew Karen Carpenter, but I think her comments were worthwhile, as were those made by Cubby O'Brien; Cherry Boone O'Neill; Olivia Newton John; Maria Luisa Galeazzi; Cynthia Gibb; and the A & M guy and Rolling Stone guy, who were not credited by name at IMDB.

The only big fault of this documentary is that once again Karen Carpenter's mother is being portrayed as a villain, as the reason so much was wrong in the singer's life. This is nothing but blaming mommy for the sins of the world. Yes, Agnes Carpenter may have been too controlling and may have favored her son, but that isn't something an adult woman can't overcome from her childhood.

Karen Carpenter was in her thirties when she got married and died. She was not a teenager. She had all the money and all the opportunities in the world to overcome her psychological problems. Her mother is not to blame for her inability to do that. It's a choice to overcome or not overcome childhood issues. Sadly, many individuals never do because they want to be seen as a hurt child forever. Sadly and strangely, many of Karen Carpenter's fans want to see her as a hurt child forever, or as an eternal victimized woman.

Important comments are made in the documentary about anorexia nervosa, particularly by Cherry Boone O'Neill. One being that what was known about the illness back in the 1970s-1980s was nothing compared to what is known about it today. Two, it can cause both permanent heart and brain damage. There can definitely be a point of no return, both physically and mentally. That's what happened to Karen Carpenter, and it was a tremendous loss to the pop music world, not to mention the Christmas music world.

In a very short span of time, pop singer Karen Carpenter rose to international musical fame and then became a tragic figure after dying young from the eating disorder anorexia. Remarkably, Starving for Perfection manages to capture all of that in just over an hour and a half.

For a very basic overview, director Randy Martin takes a chronological route through Karen Carpenter's life, chronicling her rise to fame in the late 1960s and then superstardom in the 1970s. The dynamics of her Midwest family--especially some tumultuousness with mother Agnes--play a big role here as well, including how the musical ear of brother Richard both at times held Karen back (via family favoritism) and other times ascended her drumming/vocals to new heights. Paralleling all of this is Karen's slow slide into eating disorder, culminating in tragedy in 1982.

To capture all of this, Martin interweaves two methods in Starving for Perfection:

First, a number of "talking heads" give insightful commentary on their relationships with Karen or how she inspired them. Such figures include Carol Burnett, Cynthia Gibb, Olivia Newton-John, Suzanne Somers, Kristin Chenoweth, & Carnie Wilson. These interviews really cement how truly talented Karen was and help understand how her music/vocals stand the test of time.

Secondly, a large amount of archival Carpenters footage is utilized--including some taped audio interviews that are supposedly the first time ever heard publicly. These are the sections that really dig deep into Karen's psyche and show how her body and romantic insecurities--fueled by her on-stage, front-and-center status as well as little support from immediate family--led her down the dangerous anorexia path where at certain points she weighed less than 80 pounds in total.

Coming into Starving for Perfection, all I knew about Karen Carpenter is that she was a music star in the 1970s and died of anorexia. Coming out of the doc, I understood both of those facets in a far more nuanced fashion. Karen Carpenter possessed a once-in-a-lifetime sort of vocal talent, which (orchestrated by brother Richard) became iconic. Yet, such fame could never really be enjoyed as her romantic pursuits (largely non-existent or outright failures) and body image issues were not understood or supported in ways they hopefully would have been in the current era.

Ultimately, this doc does a remarkable job of managing such sad content without forgetting the more positive legacy of Karen Carpenter--that of her angelic voice and wholesome, positive image and music. I was riveted by every morsel of material here all the way through to the closing credits.