Movie review by Greg Carlson

Based on the subject’s candid memoir, “Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood” pulls back the curtain on the sexual escapades of Scotty Bowers, longtime bartender, World War 2 Marine Corps veteran, and pimp/arranger on behalf of movie stars seeking carnal pleasure in a time when anything outside the heterosexual binary could torpedo a career or invite a bust from the vice squad. Director Matt Tyrnauer dutifully follows the nonagenarian through the smoggy streets and up into the hills overlooking Los Angeles, while the loquacious Bowers putters around the several cluttered homes he either owns or looks after. In between book signings, bartending gigs, and scavenger hunts for more junk to hoard, Bowers matter-of-factly describes the proclivities of Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Charles Laughton, Cole Porter, and many other idols.

Tyrnauer’s portraiture probes to a point, but the filmmaker deliberately allows Scotty to do most of the speaking for himself (a number of other corroborating witnesses are on hand, at least implying a level of cross-checking). The inquisitiveness stops short of the outrageousness often trumpeted in Nick Broomfield’s entertainment-focused pieces, a double-edged sword that will rile viewers hoping for sharper critique. Largely, the documentary presents Bowers as a credible authority, but the breadth and depth of the anecdotes — which include a menage a trois involving Scotty, Lana Turner and Ava Gardner, as well as eyebrow-raising requests from the visiting Duke and Duchess of Windsor — leaves it all up to the viewer to accept or reject.

Bowers often provides lurid, profanity-laced descriptions that could make a square faint dead away, and Tyrnauer indulges in some degree of mythmaking for a pre-AIDS utopia of omnisexual freedoms championed by an apple pie on the Fourth of July Iwo Jima survivor. In one vignette, Scotty contributes the introduction for Taschen’s Dian Hanson-edited collection of Allied homoerotica “My Buddy,” and the movie flirts with a psychoanalytical assessment of how Bowers may have been partially shaped by his wartime relationships.

Just as important to Scotty’s biography, however, are the revelations of preadolescent sexual abuse by an adult acquaintance and then a priest, which Bowers is quick to dismiss and wave off. Scotty insists that all his tricking and hustling was undertaken happily, even as a minor, but one gets the sense that Tyrnauer would like to imply that some trauma is linked to Scotty’s vocation, even if Bowers presents a happy-go-lucky face to the world. Along with the unglamorous foraging through mountains of garbage threatening to overtake every square inch of Scotty’s day-to-day world, Tyrnauer coaxes Scotty to open up a bit about his daughter (who we learn died from complications following an abortion when she was in her early 20s) and his longtime wife, whose vivacious presence in photographs hints at yet another fascinating tale.

Early in the film, Tyrnauer includes a clip from “The View” in which the panelists debate the ethics of Scotty’s decision to make the change, so late in life, from absolute discretion to kissing and telling. Tyrnauer, for his part, argues that the movie functions at least on one level as a corrective to the hypocrisy of golden age Hollywood and the damage done to the many actors who unfairly lived in fear of being exposed. It certainly isn’t hard to imagine Scotty’s confessions as a twilight bid for some kind of closure if not recognition. The Richfield Oil gas station at 5777 Hollywood Boulevard where Scotty began pimping has disappeared, and someday in the not too distant future, Scotty will also be gone. His stories, and our fascination with the private lives of the rich and famous, aren’t going anywhere.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Were it not for Steve McQueen’s professed admiration of the 1980s television series upon which his new movie is based, “Widows” might seem an unusual choice for the prestige filmmaker of “12 Years a Slave,” “Shame,” and “Hunger.” An often ridiculous Chicago-set heist movie with thematic interests in race, politics, gender, and power, McQueen’s film is easily better than utterly forgettable junk like “Triple 9” and “Den of Thieves.” McQueen shares screenplay credit with Gillian Flynn, but the two never completely move beyond the episodic structure beholden to the juggling of a huge ensemble cast. The result plays out very much like an episodic pilot.

Still, “Widows” has plenty to recommend it, starting with the central performance of Viola Davis as Veronica Rawlings, a teacher’s union representative married to the very well-connected professional criminal Harry (Liam Neeson). Following an introductory scene in which McQueen puts the viewer in bed with the couple for a lusty morning make-out session, a smash cut rudely kicks us to the in medias res action of Harry and his gang attempting to escape an armed robbery gone wrong. Bullets fly, a van explodes into flames, and Veronica instantly joins the title club. Facing terrifying pressure from a crooked candidate running for office — as if there is any other kind — to whom Harry owes two million bucks, Veronica reaches out to the other bereaved wives of the men killed alongside her husband.

Her plan? Use the instructions and contents of Harry’s secret notebook to commit a spectacular burglary. Mastermind Veronica convinces two widows to join up, and McQueen efficiently communicates plausible reasons for taking on such life-threatening risk. Michelle Rodriguez’s Linda is on the verge of losing her dress shop. Elizabeth Debicki’s Alice, a victim of abuse by her dominant mother (Jacki Weaver), sees little to lose and much to gain. A fourth widow, Carrie Coon’s Amanda, opts out, raising a very red flag for the sharp-eyed viewer.

As Veronica prepares to pick up where Harry left off, McQueen fills out the story with a nearly unwieldy number of important players. Power-broker Tom Mulligan (Robert Duvall) and his son Jack (Colin Farrell) engineer a campaign to retain a long-held south side alderman seat. Jack’s opponent is Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry), whose brother Jatemme (Daniel Kaluuya) is a violent sociopath/enforcer who carries out the dirty work with cold calculation. Linda’s babysitter Belle (Cynthia Erivo) joins the widows as a wheelwoman. David (Lukas Haas), a wealthy businessman in real estate, pays for the company of Alice when her mom pushes her into escort work.

Even in this pulpier terrain, McQueen’s direction is skillful and visceral. In one artsy scene, he keeps the camera outside a moving car for the duration of the conversation taking place within. He prioritizes the desperation of the women, and finds some remarkable places to take Alice (Debicki almost walks off with the movie). Whether intimate and quiet or dynamic and deafening, scenes are staged with precision and vitality. For many, McQueen’s stylishness will help excuse the rubbery plot holes, lapses in logic, and farfetched surprises that might lead some to wonder how the movie might have unfolded as a leaner, tighter operation.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

For my money, David Lowery has been as much fun to watch as any filmmaker of his generation. He’s a veteran editor, and it shows in the sensibilities, qualities, and pacing of his previous trio of features, the curious line-up of “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints,” “Pete’s Dragon,” and “A Ghost Story.” Lowery has also directed episodic television, a whole bunch of short subjects, the 2009 feature “St. Nick,” and shares directorial credit with three others on the 2005 “Deadroom.” His newest, “The Old Man & the Gun,” starring the eternal Robert Redford, has received much attention for the claim that the Sundance Kid is hanging up his spurs as an actor, for good, with this movie.

Redford may be receiving the lion’s share of attention for his easy-does-it portrayal of serial bank robber/jailbreak artist Forrest Tucker (a real-life true crime figure who died in 2004 at the age of 83), but Lowery takes his own impressive turn, simultaneously polishing the mythic status of Redford by giving the actor all the room he needs to roam and applying enough individual storytelling quirks to set the movie apart. The tale is set in the early 1980s, and the vintage mood is significantly enhanced by the use of Joe Anderson’s pretty 16mm photography.  

Even a cursory glance through the reviews of “The Old Man & the Gun” will turn up multiple instances of the word charming as descriptive of Redford, the film, or both. To that end, Lowery and his leading man delight in withholding much from the audience, leaving room for the kind of ambiguity that makes for open-ended interpretations of the motivations of a lifelong criminal with a gentlemanly sense of craft when it comes to separating banks from cash. Both Sissy Spacek’s Jewel, the woman Forrest courts, and Casey Affleck’s John Hunt, a weary cop tracking Forrest, probe their skepticism and contemplate the robber’s mysteries.

Jewel adds the romance, Hunt adds the cops-and-robbers pursuit. Hunt’s daughter notes at one point, in words written by Lowery, that catching Forrest would mean an end to the quest. We can picture Lowery smirking behind the camera during the shooting of that scene. We also imagine Lowery taking just as much delight in presenting a wide range of appreciative tributes, nods, and homages to Redford’s past, from vintage photos and a clip from “The Chase” (beautifully repurposed in an escape montage) to a cameo appearance of the nose-swipe secret code gesture from “The Sting” and the opening title’s recollection of “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” right down to the choice of typeface.

Redford, Spacek, and Affleck command so much of our attention, it sometimes feels like the rest of the cast members — including Danny Glover, Tom Waits, Tika Sumpter, and Elisabeth Moss — are a little bit shortchanged. But I like to imagine they are all having a grand experience. And it’s a testament to Lowery’s skills that complex and fully realized lives are being lived. No matter the screen time, their contributions are meaningful. Lowery’s vibe throughout is so mellow — oh, that perfect soundtrack placement of Jackson C. Frank’s “Blues Run the Game”! — philosophers can mine the subtext at their own peril.   

Movie review by Greg Carlson

WARNING: The following review reveals plot information. Read only if you have seen “Suspiria”

Luca Guadagnino’s ambitious reimagining of Dario Argento’s “Suspiria,” the first installment of the cult director’s Three Mothers trilogy, honors its inspiration with shocking spasms of gore and mind-bending phantasmagoria. Expectedly, Guadagnino also approaches the remake with carefully considered storytelling, stretching the 1977 film’s 98-minute running time to a near miniseries length of just over two and a half hours. Argento’s version, based in part on Thomas De Quincey’s 1845 essay “Suspiria de Profundis,” stirs together Jungian symbolism and Grimm fairytale to create something original. The 2018 model, in its own way, is just as unique.

Dakota Johnson takes on the Jessica Harper role of Susie Bannion, an American dancer thrilled to join the prestigious Markos Academy in West Germany. Susie’s seeming naivete will yield to unexpected perceptions, and as “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” portended, our youthful innocent will travel a road of excess all the way to the palace of wisdom. Or is it the audience navigating that rough terrain? Guadagnino, working from David Kajganich’s script (their previous collaboration, “A Bigger Splash,” was also an update: Jacque Deray’s “La Piscine”), radically reworks the central character, luxuriating in a series of climactic shocks that some fans of the original will dismiss and others will applaud.

Johnson, who appeared in “A Bigger Splash,” has more to do in “Suspiria,” but the film’s workhorse is Guadagnino favorite Tilda Swinton. Matching Peter Sellers’ “Dr. Strangelove” hat-trick, Swinton takes on reserved choreographer/master manipulator Madame Blanc, the physically decaying Mother Markos, and — under another heavy layer of mostly convincing prosthetic makeup — Dr. Josef Klemperer, the movie’s other (actual?) protagonist. Klemperer, the psychoanalyst who investigates the troupe following the disappearance of a dancer in his care, is certainly the most pronounced departure from Argento’s tale. Swinton as an elderly gentleman fits the warped vibe of sharp silver hooks and secret passageways; it’s the straightforward use of the Holocaust as narrative shorthand that doesn’t fully connect.       

And how could Guadagnino possibly hope to compete with Goblin’s score? Thom Yorke, naturally, whose melancholy contributions to the new “Suspiria” are a perfectly haunting complement to Guadagnino’s gray-skies vision of chilly, rainy, Cold War Berlin. Goblin’s sounds, as Philip Sherburne recently noted, “Shovel[ed] all manner of seemingly incompatible ideas into the blender — Baroque harpsichords, synthesizers, tabla, splatter funk, even intimations of death metal.” Yorke, subdued, minimal, and ghostly, proves one of Guadagnino’s most fortuitous additions without sounding anything like Goblin, even though, as Sherburne points out, the influence of their central theme is respectfully quoted.

Like Manohla Dargis, I questioned the value of what she describes as the “ostentatious chapter breaks and narrative padding, including some dead-end references both to 1970s German politics (cue the tear gas, riots and Baader-Meinhof mentions) and, more egregiously, to the Holocaust.” The supernatural, notwithstanding some broad-brush aspects of gender thematizing that Dargis dismissively pegs as “the old vagina dentata scare show,” worked much better. As black sabbaths go, the competitive coven members in the new “Suspiria” put every move of their dance school disguises to potent use. Patient blood aficianados who stick with the filmmaker to the final reel will most certainly receive their crimson reward.    

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Jonah Hill’s feature directorial debut, which he also wrote, is a textbook bildungsroman of the hetero-masculine variety, a finely tuned throwback to the “Mid90s” of its title smart enough to locate the universal experiences that everyone — regardless of generation — recognizes. Shot on gorgeous Super 16mm in a 4:3 aspect ratio by ace photographer and regular Kelly Reichardt collaborator Christopher Blauvelt, Hill’s lean slice of life, which runs a fleet 84 minutes, is as earnest and heartfelt as it is unapologetic about its racially-charged and homophobic milieu. Hill’s own experience as an actor pays dividends in the confident way he makes space for complete characterizations across the entire impressive ensemble.

Protagonist Stevie (Sunny Suljic), a barely pubescent 13-year-old who lives with sullen, abusive older brother Ian (Lucas Hedges) and often absent single mom Dabney (Katherine Waterston), focuses his attention on a group of mostly older skaters. Introduced to the collective by mascot Ruben (Gio Galicia), who will soon express jealousy at Stevie’s easy rapport with the others, the new kid yearns to be noticed by quiet videographer Fourth Grade (Ryder McLaughlin), easygoing joker Fuckshit (Olan Prenatt), and steady leader Ray (Na-kel Smith). Hill comments more than once on the ways in which teenagers can look years older or younger than their chronological ages, and some of the thrills of “Mid90s” are delivered via the shocking sight of angel-faced Suljic rapidly discarding his childhood.

Hill is at ease with the repartee, camaraderie, and bonhomie of bonded male groups, but in one fascinating interlude, the gang attends a mixed-gender house party. Stevie, affectionately dubbed Sunburn by the fellows, is attracted to Alexa Demie’s Estee. Nearly a head taller than Stevie, Estee takes on the lead/dominant role in the rapid seduction, remarking, “You’re, like, at the age before guys become dicks.” Later, Hill alternates, “Trainspotting”-style, between the boys comparing notes with the boys and the girls comparing notes with the girls. The gender exploration, however, pretty much ends there as the film’s raison d’etre belongs to the carefully observed patterns of gender-specific behavior enacted through the fraternal.   

Alongside Hill’s careful ear for dialogue, which pinballs from vulgar braggadocio to sincere reflection (Smith nails it in one particularly wise observational exchange), the two-decade nostalgia span is at a perfect remove to get heads nodding in recognition of Jahmin Assa’s production design, Heidi Bivens’ costumes, and the soundtrack selections that drop the needle on ideal period signifiers ranging from Pixies, Nirvana, and Cypress Hill to the Pharcyde, Del the Funky Homosapien, and Jeru the Damaja.     

“Mid90s” has drawn some comparisons to Harmony Korine (who makes a cameo in Hill’s film) and Larry Clark’s “Kids,” but Hill’s worldview is far less toxic and dangerous than the grimmest territory explored in the 1995 movie. Certain viewers will undoubtedly detect something approaching sweetness, especially in the film’s unlikely denouement. By contrast, Elizabeth Weitzman pegs the final scene as “either wish fulfillment or a cop-out,” but I suspect many will have carved out enough room to see is as something else altogether. Hill, who would have been Stevie’s age in 1996, can also be glimpsed in composite through the artistic aspirations of Fourth Grade, the clowning defense mechanisms of Fuckshit, and the determination and enterprise of Ray. I look forward to his next outing behind the camera.  

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Unknown to the general public but fascinating to followers of Stanley Kubrick, the name Leon Vitali takes center stage in Tony Zierra’s “Filmworker.” Vitali, who moved from the onscreen role of Lord Bullingdon in “Barry Lyndon” to the offscreen one as Kubrick’s general factotum for a quarter of a century, may have been credited as the famous director’s “personal assistant,” but Zierra reveals the astonishing extent of Vitali’s loyalty. Drawing from a deep trove of Kubrick-related media, including extensive clips from the master’s films, it goes without saying that “Filmworker” will be sought by Kubrick completists, but the movie also appeals to anyone who has been seduced by the process of motion picture making.

Zierra’s own filmmaking style is a far cry from the meticulous aesthetics brought to the screen by Kubrick. Mostly static talking-head interviews with Vitali — unremarkable in framing and locations — form the central narration, but Zierra invites a couple dozen others to speak on camera, including Kubrick performers Ryan O’Neal, Danny Lloyd, Matthew Modine, Tim Colceri, R. Lee Ermey, and Marie Richardson. Just as valuable are the appearances of Vitali’s fellow below-the-line filmworkers, many of whom attest to the devotion and self-sacrifice of their friend and colleague.

“Filmworker” retells a few anecdotes well-known to Kubrick fans: the physical beating Vitali took from O’Neal in take after painful take; Vitali’s careful handling and mentoring of Lloyd; the replacement of Colceri with Ermey as Sgt. Hartman in “Full Metal Jacket.” Vitali, candid and open about his reverence for Kubrick if not the full extent of the personal costs it exacted on him, speaks with pride of his wide-ranging career accomplishments. Zierra builds several excellent sequences detailing Vitali’s sponge-like thirst for film production knowledge and the benefits it yielded (and continues to yield), including a virtually perfect and encyclopedic recall regarding Kubrick’s exacting color timing specifications.

Toward the end of the film, Zierra covers the massive, retrospective, traveling museum exhibition that spans the breadth of Kubrick’s filmography, and notes that Vitali was not invited to participate in its curation or construction. Fastidiously cautious, Vitali refuses to speak ill of Kubrick’s wife Christiane and Christiane’s brother Jan Harlan, but the gap raises tantalizing questions about the dynamics of that relationship Zierra elects not to probe more thoroughly. A similar cloud hangs over the relationship Vitali shared with his own children. While they speak on camera to summarize, predictably, the memories of a childhood in which their father spent most waking hours toiling for his demanding boss, Zierra exercises perhaps too much restraint.  

Alongside Harlan’s own “Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures” and other authorized content, Zierra’s documentary joins Kubrickiana like Jon Ronson’s “Stanley Kubrick’s Boxes,” Rodney Ascher’s “Room 237,” and Alex Infascelli’s “S Is for Stanley” in a growing media library that accompanies the massive print collection of material dissecting various aspects of Kubrick’s life and work. In this particular case, Vitali’s own allegiance won’t dispel any of the mythology surrounding Kubrick’s often contradictory sides (gentle/ferocious; warm/distant; esoteric/down-to-earth, etc.), but Zierra does manage to achieve something tangible: a well-articulated and wholly compelling argument that no matter how one feels about the auteur, moviemaking is a collaborative art.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Damien Chazelle’s fourth feature follows the trajectory common to the careers of many ambitious and talented filmmakers honored with Academy Awards: the dissipation of rawness and experimentation as budgets, expectations, and stakes increase. “First Man,” a deeply self-serious adaptation of James R. Hansen’s Neil Armstrong biography of the same name, is the first of Chazelle’s features written by someone other than the director (the screenplay is the work of “Spotlight” Oscar-winner Josh Singer). The movie stars “La La Land” collaborator Ryan Gosling, and boasts meticulous attention to detail in the period reconstructions of America’s 1960s space program. Linus Sandgren’s photography alternates between frame-perfect stagings of familiar NASA footage and swooning flight porn eager to find new ways to dramatize the high-stakes endeavors.

A number of commentators have already wondered why Chazelle would choose this particular material at this particular time — a kind of anti-“Hidden Figures.” Not only does the story focus entirely on a heroic white man whose colleagues are all white men, the relegation of Claire Foy’s Janet Armstrong to the grim and thankless part of the eternally supportive wife saddles the tremendous performer with too many scenes depicting her barely concealed bitterness as she carries on with Sisyphean domestic tasks — folding laundry, disciplining children — compounded by the absence of her mate and the physical and emotional distance between them.

Just as troubling is the way in which “First Man” expresses no interest in probing the complexities of space race mythologizing, content instead to follow the bullet points of historical moments along the path from JFK’s exploratory ambitions to the world-famous “giant leap for mankind.” Richard Brody’s emphatic critique, in which he refers to “First Man” as a “right-wing fetish object,” blasts what he reads as the movie’s regressive shortsightedness. Brody argues that Chazelle has made “a film of deluded, cultish longing for an earlier era of American life…,” and the irony of political jabs at the movie from the likes of Marco Rubio and Donald Trump (who both attacked the film for not depicting the planting of the American flag on the lunar surface) is not lost on “The New Yorker” writer.    

When Leon Bridges appears as Gil Scott-Heron in a protest montage performing “Whitey on the Moon,” the movie briefly comes alive in a way that is almost entirely missing from the hermetically sealed history lessons depicting the efforts overseen by Kyle Chandler’s Deke Slayton and Ciaran Hinds’ Robert Gilruth. I couldn’t exactly be sure what Chazelle intended by using a clip of Kurt Vonnegut advocating for social/domestic spending over the steep costs of the space program, but that line of inquiry disappeared as quickly and unexpectedly as it arrived, returning us to the immediate concerns of the inscrutable and stoic Armstrong.

At 138 minutes, “First Man” is longer than it needs to be. I kept imagining an alternate, 84-minute version of the movie made by Chazelle in his early 20s for 60,000 dollars, and decided it would almost certainly be more interesting and entertaining than the 2018 number that cost more than 60 million bucks.   

Movie review by Greg Carlson

WARNING: The following review reveals plot information. Read only if you have seen “A Star Is Born”

Bradley Cooper directs himself and Lady Gaga in the fourth version of the show business perennial “A Star Is Born.” Despite looking, at least on the surface, like a calculated shot at Oscar recognition and glory, Cooper’s own history with substance abuse and suicidal ideation marks the familiar story with a deep personal connection. The chemistry between the leads and the full-bodied musical numbers will certainly generate some serious box office receipts if not near universal critical appreciation. With its rags-to-riches elements and behind-the-curtain peek into celebrity life, “A Star Is Born” is the kind of movie that will be remade for generations to come.   

Cinephiles argue that George Cukor’s 1932 “What Price Hollywood?” bears enough similarity to the subsequent versions of “A Star Is Born” to merit a spot as the unofficial debut of the irresistible recipe: take one aging male star, add a meeting with a young and talented female aspirant, and combine into a tumultuous marriage that ends in tragedy. Cooper’s take is closest in milieu to Frank Pierson’s 1976 version with Kris Kristofferson and Barbra Streisand, following most of the key plot pegs but consciously limiting the motif of professional jealousy and skipping the betrayal of adultery.  

Cooper plays Jackson (not Norman) Maine as the booze and pill-addicted singer/guitarist invigorated by Gaga’s working class Ally (not Esther). A terrific early sequence in which the two spend the wee hours of the morning together, just talking in a supermarket parking lot, establishes the dynamics of their instant attraction and portends the future when Ally busts out an original composition that sobers up the part of Jack that recognizes a natural songwriter. Vulnerability on display by both participants, the scene pulses with a sense of fates being sealed.

Neko Case, not buying the fairy tale, has been perhaps the highest profile recording artist to troll the film before its wide release, attacking Cooper as a “beige demon who makes sure very standard white dudes get to be in everything.” Case’s extended commentary assailed what she read as the inauthenticity of musician behavior during live performance. I am not sure whether anyone mentioned that movies are inherently constructed objects dependent on the suspension of disbelief, but most viewers won’t notice the “fakery.” A more legitimate character-based concern is the extent to which Cooper’s Maine is, as Anthony Lane notes, a victim whose tough background guarantees “our pity and love,” as opposed to the “nastier” and more “dangerous” takes by Fredric March and James Mason.       

Cooper’s filmmaking skills behind the camera are recognizably better than many performers-turned-directors (notwithstanding the staggering number of close-ups and the proliferation of the F-word). But on one account, his instincts are unimpeachable. The decision to cast Lady Gaga in the part previously played by Janet Gaynor, Judy Garland, and Streisand is a masterstroke. Gaga’s mere presence allows Cooper a wide berth to go big with scenes and moments that play with and embrace camp. Ally slays Maine with a killer “La vie en rose” at a drag bar in her first big scene. Later, in a moment fans of the previous iterations will anxiously anticipate, Jackson will ruin Ally’s Best New Artist Grammy speech, this time passing out while standing up and pissing his pants on national television. The memes are already strong.    

Movie review by Greg Carlson

“Love, Gilda,” Lisa D’Apolito’s biography of founding “Saturday Night Live” member Gilda Radner, treats comedy fans to an earnest assessment of the brilliant performer’s life and career, which was cut far too short at age 42 as a result of ovarian cancer. As one of the trailblazing Not Ready for Prime Time Players, Radner originated a healthy share of some of the show’s most memorable characters during her five seasons on SNL. Competing for space and time against the likes of John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, and Bill Murray in the male-dominated boys club, Radner not only held her own, she contributed some of the most iconic moments.   

D’Apolito follows a conventional chronological presentation of Radner’s path to stardom, drawing on a well-curated trove of personal and professional still photographs, family home movies, behind-the-scenes footage, and clips both obscure and well-known. This content is supplemented by new interviews with friends and associates (including Chase, Martin Short, Lorne Michaels, Paul Shaffer, Laraine Newman, Anne Beatts, Alan Zweibel, and Rosie Shuster) and a key selection of fans and admirers like Amy Poehler, Melissa McCarthy, Maya Rudolph, and Bill Hader. Unfortunately, a handful of figures are missing, perhaps most notably — but not surprisingly — former Radner boyfriend Murray, who is included in the vintage material.  

The documentary effectively addresses the entire arc of Radner’s remarkable life, from her childhood challenges with self-image (Radner’s mother made her take diet pills as a kid) to the diagnosis and treatment of the malignancy that interrupted her at a time of personal fulfillment with second husband Gene Wilder. Those bookends are both accompanied by the intimacy of private films and videos. In between, D’Apolito draws on the more familiar stuff that made Radner a legend: commentator Roseanne Roseannadanna, nerd Lisa Loopner, precocious child Judy Miller, confused editorialist Emily Litella, and the hybrid impersonations of celebrities like Baba Wawa and Candy Slice, among others.

Radner’s Peter Pan-like refusal to abandon the happiest aspects of childhood and adolescence helps D’Apolito move beyond the banality that transforms so many personality documentaries into hagiographic tributes. Obviously, movies that celebrate artists and performers (especially those who have died) overwhelmingly bend toward the laudatory. But the selected notes from Radner’s journals, writings, and letters peel off the masks of tragedy and comedy in equal measure, like the laughter and tears woven into “Honey (Touch Me with My Clothes On).” In one, Radner describes the “heavy chains” that attach her rising star to the hard ground. In another, she relates a hilariously mortifying anecdote of a fan’s medical ethics breach.

The latter story is read by another, but “Love, Gilda” is narrated principally by Radner’s own voice, and D’Apolito locates much vulnerability, as well as the dark self-doubt that Radner was able to hold at bay when she experienced the ebullience and joy of being on stage. Those candid and direct admissions don’t cover everything with the same degree of detail. But D’Apolito has thoughtfully and carefully applied an evenhandedness to the whole. The last section of the film, focused on the Radner-Wilder partnership, skips past most of their disappointing movie collaborations to concentrate on the mutual love and respect that transcended show-must-go-on cliches to make a case for life and how to live it.