SXSW Film

And Everything Is Going Fine

Documentary Feature, Festival Favorites
D: Steven Soderbergh

The great monologist Spalding Gray delivers something of a posthumous autobiography in this documentary by Soderbergh that cohesively pares down more than 900 hours of available Gray footage (gray matter?) into a 90-minute movie. The film will appeal mostly to those already familiar with Gray's performance career and apparent suicide in 2004, as the film does nothing to narrate or explain the story of Gray's life. And Everything Is Going Fine gathers together clips from Gray's many stage performances and filmed interviews to create a chronological portrait of the artist. Due to this careful organizing, we can observe Gray's development as an actor and gravitation toward his one-man autobiographical shows, as well as his perpetual absorption with issues of mortality and family madness. Though Soderbergh knew Gray from directing him in two films – King of the Hill and Gray's Anatomy – there is no doubt that Fine's editor, Susan Littenberg, also deserves credit for wrangling this material into lucid shape.

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Saturday, March 20, 5:30pm, Ritz 1