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It’s hard not to look at a basic outline of Paul Newman’s and Joanne Woodward’s lives and careers and instinctually paint a rosy picture. Their marriage, which began in 1958, lasted an astonishing 50 years; along the way, they built über-successful, frequently intersecting film careers, all while using their fame and finances as tools to tangibly uplift the progressive political causes they believed in. It’s easy to misguidedly romanticize movie stars of yore, mistaking beatified images and an accumulation of impressive roles for trustworthy representations of the humans behind them. But Woodward and Newman, on top of being hot and talented, really did seem to be genuinely good-hearted people. 

You won’t finish The Last Movie Stars, Ethan Hawke’s extraordinary — and extraordinarily comprehensive — new documentary series about Newman and Woodward, and have those conclusions foundationally unchanged. What’s different now is that there’s a new dimension to how we see them — a new sense of humanity. Hawke uses a lifelong admiration he cheerily confesses to in the first episode as a motor not to further fawn over them but rather paint a full picture of a couple that, as one of their interviewed daughters notes in the finale, is oftentimes robbed of nuanced framing and appreciation because the overarching too-good-to-be-trueness of their shared story is so intoxicating.

Read the full column on 425.