Madonna and the Breakfast Club

Writer-director Guy Guido's semi-documentary film "Madonna and the Breakfast Club" doesn't just go back to the roots of the Material Girl's career; the film dives deep, starting at the very start and blending well-produced narrative reenactments of key passages in Madonna's life and her driving push toward stardom with present-day interviews of many of the people who taught, mentored, and collaborated along the way... and then were left behind.

Madonna (Jamie Auld) hits New York in the late 1970s to study dance, but soon takes an interest in other kinds of performance. After briefly dating a fellow called Norris Burroughs (Jordan Loewenstein) she meets a musician friend of Norris' called Dan Gilroy (Calvin Knie). One thing leads to another; Madonna moves into a refurbished synagogue with Dan and his brother Ed (Daniel Davison Leonard), and the trio form a band, taking on various fourth and fifth members.

Eventually, Madonna – seeking a more prominent position – leaves the group, and Dan in the process, peeling off band members Gary Burke (James David Larson) and Mike Monahan (Michael Varde) when she does so. These three create a new group, Emmy, and bring in drummer / songwriter / producer Stephen Bray (Rogelio Douglas III). That move, plus a lot of aggressive self-promotion, eventually leads to a big break, and that – predictably enough – prompts the breakup of Emmy. "You could tell she was embarrassed about it," the real Gary Burke says, recalling how angry he was at being discarded the moment a golden opportunity arrived. "But she had to do what she had to do." As he summarizes a bit later in the doc, "She's that ambitious. She was not gonna be stopped."

But all's not a straight trajectory to stardom from there; Madonna eventually ends up back at square one, with no band and no management. What she does have, though, is a demo tape, produced by Bray, and that – long at last – turns out to be the straw that broke her through the door and into fame. Once there, Madonna proved worthy of the spotlight. She's never left it since.

But the film is more than the story behind the rise of one of pop music's enduring superstars. There are poignant nuggets strewn throughout, many of them shared between Madonna and Dan Gilroy (who, with Ed, Gary, and Stephen, later re-formed Breakfast Club, sans Madonna, and enjoyed some success of their own), and they speak to Madonna's perspicacity as well as to the costs of stardom.

Early on, in a tape recording of Madonna and Dan – flashback footage made on suitably crappy videotape finds them are shown lounging in bed as the actors enter the scene and reenact the conversation – Madonna makes the spot-on observation that people "always look at you before they look at what you do." Sexiness, she's realizing, is a crucial component to success.

But later – much later – when she meets with Dan again after twice having broken his heart, she shares a reflective moment: "Remember how all I wanted was for people to notice me? Now I find myself just hiding out most of the time."

The cast in general are well-chosen, resembling the actual people enough to be convincing as their younger versions, but it's Auld who sells the show. Knie makes for a good screen partner – there's palpable chemistry between them, and his performance holds up to Auld's compelling depiction of the young, hungry Madonna. While the real Madonna herself does not grace this film, you almost feel like she had – Auld is that good. Beautiful, vulnerable, tough – and yes, sexy – she embodies Madonna as we love to see her: Talented, burning with that mysterious "it" quality, a star both lucky and bright.

If Alek Keshishian's 1991 doc "Truth or Dare" gave us the glossy face of a venerated pop icon – as lacquered and remote as she was glamorous – this telling of Madonna's creative salad days feels like the true story, full of people who yearn, hurt, fall in love, and make sacrifices.