Metacritic reviews

“Five Foot Two” is mostly about a woman pushing forward with her career in pain, and we’re talking chronic literal pain.

I found the film intensely revealing of Gaga’s life and personality, especially when she’s getting treatments to deal with the pain that’s dogged her for three years, ever since she suffered a broken hip (misdiagnosed at the time) on tour.

Five Foot Two does a nice job getting way behind the scenes of a non-stop, sometimes grotesquely glamorous life.

The end result is a film that may not rise to the level of “Don’t Look Back” or “Truth or Dare” but still manages to create a sense of intimacy and revelation, even as we sense that there is really no such thing as an unguarded moment for Lady Gaga.

While it’s possible that the director and cinematographer Chris Moukarbel is good at withholding unflattering material, Gaga comes off well, and credibly so: intelligent, an accomplished craftswoman, a well-mannered collaborator and boss.

Entertaining but manipulative.

Gaga is indeed sort of a mess in this movie, yet her grandmother’s emotional pragmatism is in there somewhere, too.

Five Foot Two distinguishes itself from similar projects from Justin Bieber and Katy Perry by not trying to be a 101 class in the subject and her personal history, but when it hits similar beats — heartbreak, the physical demands of performing, tearful scenes with family — anyone who doesn’t have a Little Monster’s encyclopedic knowledge might feel a little emotionally lost.

Far from seeming like a strategic element created to define Lady Gaga's reinvention, the documentary instead feels like a natural outgrowth of it.

The problem with “Five Foot Two,” which arrives Friday on Netflix and in theaters, is that it’s a disjointed pastiche of generic pop-star clichés.