HBO dropped the first trailer for the upcoming Alanis Morissette documentary Jagged on Tuesday (Nov. 9), offering a glimpse at the singer’s unlikely, determined rise to fame in the 1990s. “People would say, ‘Wow, you’re so brave, you’re so empowered,’” the singer says in the opening frames of the two-minute teaser. “I can’t write all these songs without obvious having been disempowered.”
The movie is slated to drop on HBO Max on Nov. 18, but you won’t see Alanis hitting the late night and interview circuit to promote it. In September, the singer said she won’t be supporting the release of the film chronicling the explosive success of her breakthrough 1995 album Jagged Little Pill because she felt the producers were not honest with her.
“I was lulled into a false sense of security and their salacious agenda became apparent immediately upon my seeing the first cut of the film,” Morissette said in a statement at the time. “This is when I knew our visions were in fact painfully diverged. This was not the story I agreed to tell.” Without specifying, Morissette said the film includes “implications and facts that are simply not true.”
The film, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, was directed by Alison Klayman (Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry) and executive produced by Bill Simmons. It features interviews with Morissette, Jagged producer Glen Ballard, filmmaker Kevin Smith, Garbage singer Shirley Manson and Alanis’ former drummer, the Foo Fighters’ Taylor Hawkins.
Ballard describes how “everybody” rejected what Alanis describes as the pair’s “too in-your-face… emotional” songs, leading to rejection from every label they approached until Madonna’s Maverick Records picked it up. “It just went nuclear, man. It was like… it went nuclear,” Hawkins says about how the album full of songs exploring Morissette’s hurt, angst, wonder and rage at the patriarchy blew up overnight on its way to selling more than 33 million copies worldwide to date.
“When you are the only woman in a male-dominated environment, it’s very complicated and complex,” Manson says amid footage of Morissette rocking huge crowds and clowning around with her band. Jagged is the second doc in the HBO Music Box series, which launched in July with a Woodstock 99 film. Upcoming episodes will explore the careers of DMX, Kenny G and late rapper Juice WRLD.
Watch the trailer below.
