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And Everything Is Going Fine (DVD)
Year: 2000
Rating: PG
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Spalding Gray
Release Date: June 17, 2011
Distributor: Curious
The Film: 4.0
The Disc: Zero
FILMINK rates DVDs and Blu-rays out of 5“…remains compelling, funny and finally heartbreaking.”
Today, the concept of "spoken word" performance - which exists somewhere between stand-up comedy, theatre, and poetry - is unusual but fairly commonplace, with the likes of Henry Rollins and, ahem, Chopper Read popularising the form. The man who practically invented it, however, was American actor and writer Spalding Gray, a figure of elegant, incisive wit and winning self deprecation who literally made a career out of speaking about himself. In a number of stunning filmed performance pieces - most notably Swimming To Cambodia, Monster In A Box and Gray's Anatomy - Gray laid bare the finer details of his life, from the nervous breakdown of his mother and his experiences as an actor on The Killing Fields to his own personal infidelities. Somehow, he managed all of this without ever coming across as self-absorbed or pretentious.
In And Everything Is Going Fine, director Steven Soderbergh expertly creates a narrative on the late Mr. Gray's life by stitching together existing footage - from performances and TV interviews to more candid one-on-ones - that takes us from his peculiar childhood right up to the horrific car accident that smashed his body and pushed him toward his ultimate tragic suicide. Though formally lacking in style, this doco remains compelling, funny and finally heartbreaking.
