THE STORY – Blurring the line between performance and personal crisis, comedian Maria Bamford turns her mental health journey into material that’s riotously funny and ultimately inspiring. What emerges is a portrait of an artist transforming vulnerability into creative strength through honesty.
THE CAST – Maria Bamford
THE TEAM – Judd Apatow & Neil Berkeley (Directors)
THE RUNNING TIME – 116 Minutes
Stand-up comedy isn’t easy. It’s obviously a difficult art to master, and it can also be tough on an audience. Few voluntary experiences are worse than bearing witness to a poorly-performed comedy set. It’s probably why I have a general aversion to this type of comedy – the fear of potentially watching something cringe-inducing or awkward that desperately wants for laughter is enough to keep me away, most of the time. So I may not be the obvious target audience for “Paralyzed by Hope: The Maria Bamford Story,” given that it, obviously, delves into the life and career of the famous stand-up comic and all-around funny person. But this general trepidation about the artform made my enthusiastic response to the documentary feel even more impressively earned. Like the titular woman herself, the film from co-directors Judd Apatow and Neil Berkeley is equally hilarious and unafraid to be very, very real, beckoning viewers in like a close friend and rewarding them with laughs and profound insight.
The film is a fairly linear look at Maria Bamford’s life and career, broken up into chapters as if this were a biographical book. Her childhood was, by her own admission, fairly idyllic, but from a very young age, her neuroses were apparent, even if she didn’t have the language to fully express her feelings. She showed a gravitation toward suicidal ideation, dreaming up elaborate fantasies that ended in her death. And that’s just the first area of morbidity that the film covers. Bamford is totally unafraid to share every aspect of her internal life, even the most private, potentially upsetting parts. And like all great comedians, she uses these struggles in her work, both as a form of self-therapy and as a way to remove any barrier between herself and her audiences. As she admits, sometimes these very public revelations of very personal matters can hurt those around her, such as her penchant for impersonating her parents and sister. But her gift for adopting different voices and slipping into fully embodied characters is undeniably a major factor in her success, and the documentary spotlights these spectacular abilities in ways that are always thrilling to watch.
As the film moves chronologically through Bamford’s life, her trials and triumphs are paired with relevant footage from her decade-spanning stand-up sets. It’s a great way of bringing levity to what are, on paper, pretty devastating life events. Deaths of family members, mental breakdowns, and stays in psych wards are all aspects of Bamford’s life that she considers fair game for comedy material. She’s shown to be totally unafraid to “go there,” but not in an intentionally antagonistic manner in order to provoke a shocked reaction. These are just factual things that happened to her, and she doesn’t view them as something to hide away or be ashamed of. Her years-long battle with OCD and aggressive intrusive thoughts is particularly enlightening and even inspiring. Her humorous perspective removes some of the power from such debilitating mental idiosyncrasies while never undermining their severity. She also goes into detail about the difficulties she faced as a female comedian working in an industry that constantly underestimates and undervalues her because of her gender, without ever weighing down the film. As with her personal difficulties, it peers into gender inequality in the world of comedy with a biting, witty sense of humor.
As far as filmmaking goes, Apatow and Berkeley don’t really make their presence known. Instead, they let Bamford herself propel her own story, both with her archival stand-up footage and in totally unvarnished interviews (within the film’s first few minutes, she shows off her various medications, making it immediately clear that nothing will be hidden from the camera). But as is typical with Apatow, the film feels a bit too long. Some of the areas of Bamford’s life that are covered don’t necessarily feel extraneous, but the film luxuriates in its examinations in a way that slows down the pacing. But the film’s content remains compelling. The documentary is further enhanced by its storytelling thanks to interviews with an impressive roster of comedic contemporaries who know, love, and admire Bamford, including Stephen Colbert, Zach Galifianakis, Tig Notaro, and Conan O’Brien, among many others.
The best thing that can be said about the absolutely hilarious “Paralyzed by Hope: The Maria Bamford Story” is that it can be appreciated equally by longtime fans of the comic and those who were previously relatively unfamiliar with her work, such as myself. The affection and admiration the filmmakers have for Bamford shine through without ever casting her in a hagiographic light. This bio-doc successfully does what all films of its type strive to do: it turns all viewers into fans of its subject.
