Moukarbel’s portrait of the real Stefani is comparatively light on Americana kitsch—which makes sense, considering that she was born into a well-off family, raised in Manhattan, and has about as much in common with Middle American moms as she does with fantastical fame monsters. Instead, we get carefully measured, but often fascinating, snapshots of life as a 30-year-old star who wants to stop hiding behind the outsized persona she crafted a decade ago.

Gaga has said that she only asked Moukarbel to turn off his camera a few times during production, and although that doesn’t account for everything that must have gotten cut in editing, there are some open inclusions. We watch her lament the way her all-consuming career sabotages her romances, but she still makes time to keeps tabs on her friend and collaborator, Sonja Durham, who died of cancer this spring. Her chronic pain condition flares up, and she allows viewers to see her writhing on a couch, wondering aloud, “Do I look pathetic?” There’s a lot of crying, none of it melodramatic.

Gaga: Five Foot Two Courtesy of Netflix

As an artist, Gaga is revealed to be just as tireless and exacting as she’s always seemed. Her relationship with collaborator Mark Ronson, whom she praises for being more respectful than other male producers, is warm and honest. They celebrate successful sessions and have productive arguments. She cries on his shoulder when she’s worked herself ragged. On the set of “American Horror Story,” whose cast she joined for seasons five and six, and in rehearsals for her Super Bowl set, she has minor breakdowns when decisions are made without her input, but quickly regains her composure. Before greeting her fans at the “Perfect Illusion” shoot, she frets that they’ll be disappointed to see her without all the makeup and glitter.

Her self-awareness is endearing. “I want to do the opposite of what everyone thinks I’m going to do,” she announces in a meeting about the halftime show. “Everybody thinks I’m gonna come out on a fuckin’ throne, in a meat dress, with 90 shirtless men and unicorns.” Later, she shrugs off the inevitable analyses of the performance: “Everyone’s gonna read into it what they want to read into it. That’s the way this goes.” Particularly for an artist who made her name dramatizing the ravages of fame, that’s a surprisingly healthy attitude towards public scrutiny.

The film isn’t entirely free of contrived scenes. A lightly disguised Gaga makes a big show of buying Joanne at a Walmart. Moukarbel includes a conversation that seems calculated to generate headlines, where she vents about the way Madonna trashed her in the press: “The only thing that really bothers me about her is that I’m Italian and from New York, you know? So, like, if I’ve got a problem with somebody, I’m gonna fuckin’ tell you to your face… Telling me you think I’m a piece of shit through the media—it’s like a guy passing me a note through his friend: ‘My buddy thinks you’re hot.’” Is it more mature to talk shit in a documentary you produced?

These false notes aside, the film accomplishes what Joanne couldn’t: It peels away even the new, “authentic” persona to give us a glimpse of what remains when Stefani Germanotta steps out of her Lady Gaga drag. She appears to be a smart, funny, sincere, and hard-working woman, as well as the same kind of anxiety-ridden control freak some of us will recognize from our own bathroom mirrors. Many of her fans miss the old, weird Gaga, clad in 18-inch platforms. I do, too. But if Stefani is here to stay, she might consider letting the person we meet in Five Foot Two sing on her next album.

“Gaga: Five Foot Two” streams on Netflix starting this Friday, September 22.