I always thought of Katy Perry as sort of the Disney version of Lady Gaga — similarly over the top, but in a really cheery, accessible way. The 3-D concert documentary “Katy Perry: Part of Me” confirms this 100 percent. But it also sheds light on her rather unique path to stardom, chronicling the exhaustive level of ambition a young woman must have to achieve what she’s done in just a few short years, which includes becoming the only female artist to have five chart-topping singles from one album.
Deploying a briskly effective, humanizing strategy similar to last year’s “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never,” directors Dan Cutforth and Jane Lipsitz intersperse immersively three-dimensional footage from Perry’s world tour last year with backstage scenes, home videos and interviews with her nearest and dearest (the notable exception being the singer’s then-husband, Russell Brand, whom she divorced while the movie was being shot).
Anyone looking for an explanation for Perry’s obsession with fantastical, cartoonish trappings will find it in her and her siblings’ description of their upbringing, traveling with their Pentecostal-minister parents. Girlhood-staple stories like “Alice in Wonderland” and “The Wizard of Oz” were prohibited for being “satanic” — as was the consumption of Lucky Charms (the most pagan of the breakfast cereals, apparently).
This being the most extensively documented generation yet, there’s no shortage of video to showcase Perry’s progress from gospel crooner to floundering acoustic singer to megastar. So it’s a little confounding that there’s time taken away from her engaging back story and spectacular stage show for interviews with costume and makeup people, who, while seemingly nice folks, don’t have anything particularly insightful to add.
But Perry’s multitudes of devoted fans — the majority female and tween or teenage, but certainly not all — will feel a vicarious thrill as the singer confides that “this moment is my childhood dream come true,” as she rises through a hole in the stage, clad in a glittery pinwheel dress, to perform her songs for a packed stadium.
And, boy, does she give it her all, both onstage and off. Effervescent renditions of hits like “I Kissed a Girl” — the torch-song version — and “Firework” and “Peacock” make use of the very latest technology to create a concertgoing experience that, in a way, far surpasses what you’d see if you were there in person, especially in the cheap seats.
Backstage, Perry tirelessly works her way through the de rigueur meet-and-greets, giving each star-struck child her undivided if brief attention, and hammers her team about making sure she gets days off to go see her husband. Brand, a sometimes-working actor, “should” fly out to meet her at various locations on tour, Perry admits. “But he won’t.”
The marriage crumbles, illustrated sparsely but wrenchingly as Perry sobs in her dressing room before a show, surrounded by her well-intentioned but puzzled handlers.
Ever the professional, the pop star has surrounded herself with people who know how to make a tour work — but none of them seem well-equipped to give a heartbroken 27-year-old girl a much needed hug.