INDEPENDENT FILM FOR INDEPENDENT MINDS

The life and mind of the enigmatic Spalding Gray, one of America’s most brilliant and confounding actors/comedians/monologists, is deconstructed by the man himself (with a little help from Steven Soderbergh) in And Everything is Going Fine, a portrait of an artist whose fleeting relationship with past and present realities fuels this dichotomous production. One is never sure whether the film documents the performer adding layers to his onstage alter-ego or is, in fact, exposing the performer himself; regardless, the film makes for a compelling 90 minutes in the company of a unique individual. Unavoidably existing beneath a shroud of melancholy associated with Gray’s apparent suicide in 2004, Soderbergh’s film paints a picture of a man whose public persona defines the man himself - a blurring of celebrity and intimacy that makes for a volatile combination. Compiled from 90 hours of material collated from decades of filmed performances and in-depth interviews, Soderbergh pieces together a profound insight into Gray’s views on his own life, work and developing psychosis. In choosing not to accompany Gray’s words and image with a narrator or explanatory titling, the filmmaker has afforded the artist the most pure of platforms from which to speak - a perfectly respectful filmic recreation of Gray’s famous one-man performance pieces.