A good movie

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but, since it was directed by Steven Soderbergh, I thought I might as well check it out. I have to admit that I haven’t seen a monologue from Spalding Gray but I did hear about them and they look actually pretty neat. The one thing that I really enjoyed with this documentary was that Soderbergh didn’t comment or interview anyone else to talk about Gray. Indeed, with such documentaries, it is rather usual to ask colleagues and family members to tell their opinions or some anecdote about the main subject but it is usually hardly interesting after all (for example, even though ‘Sly Lives!’ was a decent flick, it was rather weird that you barely get to see Sly Stone telling his own story). Here, it’s the opposite as you only get to see Gray talking endlessly mostly about himself which effectively turned this documentary into one of his monologues after all. The interesting thing is that I’m usually not really interested in stand-up comedians (I can’t remember the last time I saw one of those) but I actually really liked Gray’s style. Indeed, he has such a command of the English language and uses some elaborate language, and I could really identify with his neurotic manic way of thinking. There was also a dark edge to his work but there was no self-pity and always some kind of wonder about himself and life in general. Eventually, even though he didn’t say so, I think the guy was amazed that he managed to become so successful with his monologues which were just about him on a stage with a table and a chair simply telling his stories. Now, I definitely have one to watch one of these soon. Anyway, to conclude, even if it was nothing really groundbreaking, it was a decent watch and I think it is worth a look, especially if you are interested in Spalding Gray’s work. 

7/10