THE STORY – An intimate portrait of comedian and podcast pioneer Marc Maron following the sudden loss of his partner and filmmaker Lynn Shelton. Maron struggles with grief, disillusionment, and a shifting comedy landscape.
THE CAST – Marc Maron, Lynn Shelton, Nate Bargatze, John Mulaney, Caroline Rhea, David Cross, Michaela Watkins, W. Kamau Bell, Laurie Kilmartin, Sam Lipsyte, Brendan McDonald, Gary Gulman & Jessica Kirson
THE TEAM – Steven Feinartz (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 97 Minutes
I never planned on being one of those people who needs to listen to some form of white noise or classical music to fall asleep, but it helps. Sometimes, I go the Chopin route; other times, I’m in more of a “studying playlist” state of mind. Lately, though, I’ve been gravitating towards W Magazine’s ASMR series, a sentence I cringe typing yet feel no two ways about admitting. It’s soothing, listening to celebrities of varying degrees of fame whisper into well-balanced microphones while flicking a lighter on and off or jotting down thoughts on a particularly hushing brand of notebook paper. Gracie Abrams’ video is my favorite – she has a knack for the exact qualities that make a successful work of ASMR – but the other night, as she lit a few candles, she would momentarily blow out for the sake of our ears, something she said caused me to shoot awake and scramble for my own notebook. Quoting a phrase her mother tends to say when people are being “funny,” Abrams said, “Just let them.” Her interpretation of that adage is, in the pop star’s words, “Everyone is on their own path. You never know what anyone else is going through. It’s really like, “Let them, and may they be free from suffering and all its causes.” What I imagine is most helpful is to hope that everyone on their respective journey continues to have as much inner peace as possible because we can’t always understand one another completely.”
To be clear, if I told Marc Maron that this made me think about the message of his new documentary, “Are We Good?,” directed by Steven Feinartz, he would punch me in the face on principle. Not because he disagrees, necessarily. It’s just because I heard it in a 25-year-old singer’s ASMR video at 1 a.m. Which, you know, adds up. It’s a ridiculous concept that such a “revelation” came to me as I lulled myself into slumber to the sounds of a YouTube upload that I’ve listened to 50-plus times this year, and not just something that I’ve chosen to live by, or even took from the film about his life, comedy career, and trials with mental health, addiction, and unthinkable loss. The idea itself, though, is something I think Maron could get behind if he isn’t already. As Feinartz’s film unfolds, we’re witness to an excess of evidence that supports this claim, actions, and philosophies that paint Maron in the light that would not only “let them” but also as someone who needs to be “let.”
Maron’s first stand-up performance was in 1987, and though “Are We Good?” is interested in charting the course of his time on stage, it’s more drawn to Maron’s personal life, and specifically how it has changed since he lost his partner, the filmmaker Lynn Shelton, just months into the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. She had been battling acute myeloid leukemia at the time and died on May 16 of that year; on May 17, Maron uploaded an episode of his popular podcast, “WTF with Marc Maron,” titled “Remembering Lynn Shelton,” including a personal eulogy of sorts from the host and the 2015 interview that ultimately served as their meet-cute. “I don’t know that I’d ever felt what I felt with her before,” Maron said in what would ultimately become (and still remains) the most emotional opening monologue in the show’s now-16-year run. “I do know, actually. I did not. I have not… I was better in Lynn Shelton’s gaze.”
A rudimentary documentary would have taken the easy route, framing Shelton’s death as an event that Maron would eventually overcome to great success, almost as though death is a mere roadblock in this journey called life. But what Feinartz and Maron – who, at the start of the film, admits annoyance with himself for ever agreeing to do the movie at all – achieve with “Are We Good?” is less of a career-spanning traversion than it is a snapshot of Maron’s recovery, as it were, with notable bits of past and present history sprinkled in to provide background when necessary. Most of the Maron we see through Feinartz’s lens is the Maron that we see in his comedy, a cracked soul laid bare for audiences to laugh at the pain he’s more than happy to joke about. But what adds to the film’s gutting resonance is the fact that said cracked soul has been mending itself for five years in the aftermath of Shelton’s death, and more than Maron wishes to talk about his comedy, he wants to discuss grieving, moving on, and reckoning with real, unthinkable loss. He delivers plenty of wisdom on these topics in a humorous manner, but he also recognizes that not everything needs to have a punchline or even a proper answer. As he prepares to go on stage at the grand reopening of Comedy Works in Denver, he (rhetorically) asks, “What the fuck am I doing to myself trying to work this shit out in these places?”
Interviews with Maron’s friends and fellow comedians – including Nate Bargatze, David Cross, W. Kamau Bell, John Mulaney, Michaela Watkins, and more – don’t attempt to answer that question either, instead dedicating their screen time to describing Maron’s comedy. Specifically, they note how his work isn’t necessarily destined for arenas but that the niche he’s carved out for himself is what makes him so beloved. In his sets, Maron discusses his grief, worldview, and how the two have blended together in recent years; that realization is one of the film’s most predominant threads. He jokes about Liquid Death’s marketing – how people clearly must find the idea the canned water company presents attractive enough to buy it non-stop, himself included – and about how he more or less started his podcast in an effort to “make amends to everyone I was a dick to.” Those amends, the pillar of a step in Maron’s sobriety program, may not be shown on screen. Still, Maron’s commitment to substance-related abstinence is both admirable and crucial to see, especially given the loss he’s suffered.
That may just be one man’s opinion on the subject. Still, there’s no denying how refreshing it is to see a director and his subject so clearly working together to make a celebrity-focused documentary that never feels performative in nature. It’s particularly refreshing to see a portrait of a comedian where their mental health is the story’s anchor, not a functional device for a film in which comics talk about their struggles with anxiety and depression without ever digging under the surface. That was the problem with 2024’s “Group Therapy,“ a film that premiered at that year’s Tribeca Film Festival and designed a roundtable of sorts for figures like Tig Notaro, Nicole Byer, Mike Birbiglia, and others to have frank conversations about what it’s like to battle mental tribulations on a daily basis. While that film dedicated itself entirely to discussions surrounding mental health, it did so in a rehearsed, panel-y manner.
Maron, meanwhile, stays off the cuff, never fetishizing his grief nor his struggles with addiction, depression, or any other mind-based monster. And in keeping the camera on him as his subject’s stream of consciousness unravels in real-time – featuring conversations with his cats, who Maron speaks to like bad roommates; porchbound ab crunches with his trainer; and criticisms of other comedians all feature prominently – Feinartz’s picture of Maron feels as simon-pure as the man’s podcast monologues and his Shelton-associated sadness. The title “Are We Good?“ references a question Maron continues to ask his director out of frustration that the cameras continue to roll. However, it also serves as an inquiry we should conduct with ourselves more frequently. Maron’s argument, which may be tough to accept at first, is that it’s okay if the answer is, “No, I’m not good.“ All the more reason to search for meaning in a world full of it, depending on where you look.
