There’s a certain amount of pressure that comes with reimagining a beloved classic. Not only are you expected to do right by the extant fans of the work, but you must also find a way to update and accelerate the work so that it might find purchase with those who have no connection to the source material.

It’s a highwire act that many filmmakers have tried to navigate. Many have tried … and many have failed. Of particular note is the attempt to revisit a work that has already engaged in a shift from stage to screen. At that point, you’re dealing not just with a play that needs to be adapted, but a preexisting film version as well – doubly difficult.

It’s a difficulty that crops up from time to time in “Blithe Spirit,” the latest attempt to bring that classic Noel Coward play to life on the big screen. It’s directed by Edward Hall, with three credited screenwriters on the adaptation in Nick Moorcraft, Meg Leonard and Piers Ashworth, and features a star-studded cast that includes the likes of Dan Stevens, Isla Fisher, Leslie Mann and the immortal Judi Dench.

It’s a perfectly fine film. Better than I expected actually, though ultimately, it doesn’t live up to its pedigree either in terms of source material or of ensemble. Some of the subtler aspects are lost in the transition to film, but it must be said that the story benefits greatly from the ability to more fully utilize the setting (or settings). Not as great as it could have been, but maybe not as bad as some would have you believe, either.

There are a couple of different ways to make a documentary focused on a single figure. You can go the cradle to grave route. You can take the snapshot view, pulling a moment or moments to the forefront to serve as your foundation. Or you can mix it up, using the latter strategy to develop ideas within the framework of the former.

That last method is what Academy Award winner Freida Lee Mock has opted to do with “Ruth – Justice Ginsburg in Her Own Words,” the documentary newly available via virtual theatrical screening. The film takes a look at much of the late Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s life, though the primary focus is on her relationship with the Supreme Court, both in terms of arguing before it and serving on it.

Unfortunately, the film’s relatively lengthy quest for distribution – the film started making the festival rounds back in 2019 – means that in some aspects, it is a little dated. Specifically, it was completed before Justice Ginsburg’s passing in September of last year, leaving a few segments feeling a little askew.

Still, those off-key moments are relatively few and found primarily in the film’s final act. For the majority of the proceedings, we watch as the dynamic between the legal powerhouse that was RBG and the highest court in the land grows and evolves. And we get that through the standard talking head interviews, yes, but also – and primarily – through audio and video recordings of the woman herself, lending a proximity of perspective that invites the viewer in.