Filed under: Reviews | Tags: 2010, and everything is going fine, steven soderbergh
Director: Steven Soderbergh
The lack of an oppressive narrative imprint on And Everything Is Going Fine gives it a certain ghostly quality, as if Spalding Gray himself has returned from the grave to curate his own life story. Of course, to say that the film isn’t “guided” by another’s hand is a misjudgment–actually, it is a monumental feat of editing, both creating a cohesive, compelling narrative and arriving at a certain ethereal truth. The film follows a loosely chronological structure, with Gray’s monologues in the early part of the picture involving his childhood and the relationships he had with his family, and later on his dalliances with college, sex, and so on. What is so haunting about this structure is that the actual filmed elements come from such a vast array of sources. Edits close the gap of decades, and there is a beautiful harmony in the way that images from both Gray’s past and the ostensible “present” work together to arrive at a more complete truth. These filmed elements run the gamut from appearances on The Charlie Rose Show to Gray’s on-stage experimentation with Chumbawamba, and each piece coheres together to create a portrait of a great artist. Touchingly, the film also works as a new monologue–could there possibly be a more fitting tribute to an artist than a worthy emulation of his life’s work?
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