I wandered over to this harmless doc after reading about filmmaker/journalist Jacob Bernstein's recent misogynistic slur regarding The First Lady. Turns out the whole family has a penchant for high profile gossip going as far back as 40s Hollywood for Bernstein, the child of high profile parents Nora Ephron and Carl Bernstein. It's a cautious documentary in spite of Jacob's closeness to the subject as he searches for another side of his mother through family and friends who probably bounced him on their knees as a child. One doubts very much they would reveal any dark secrets to this young man now morphed into documentarian about his mother. Carl, the unctuous old man needs papering over though and haggles with his son about an ex-wife reaching back from the grave to even the score for his miscreant ways.
Daughter of screenwriters, Ephron during the 60s made her bones in the rough and tumble world of NY tabloids and the pages of Esquire in what was an overwhelmingly male dominated occupation. After a well re-viewed fictionalized account (Heartburn) about her marriage to the execrable Bernstein she hit it big as a screenwriter with Oscar noms for Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle. She moved on to direction with less success and her lack luster output ran from decent (Sleepless in Seattle) to abysmal (Bewitched, Mixed Nuts).
Passing away at 71 she was a favorite with the NY and Hollywood in-crowd that director Bernstein has privileged access to and there is no shortage of praise from the likes of Tom Hanks, David Geffen, Meg Ryan, Steven Spielberg, Barbara Walters allowing only a quirk here and there (the first husband claims she was prone to hyperbole) to break up the love fest. And this is where the film fails as revealing documentary since the interviewees looking into the face of the subject's child are not about to jump ugly with someone so emotionally involved. If someone did then it ended up on the cutting room floor since nearly all of Everything is Copy is a bouquet tossed at Ephron by a loving son making news these days as a journalist calling the President's wife "a hooker." Mother issues perhaps? We certainly won't get any answers from this saccharine doc.
