Love Gilda

If you're a fan of Gilda Radner, you know how the story ends. The challenge of making a documentary about her, then, lies not in keeping the ending in suspense, but making the journey as engaging as possible. Educating the viewer about a side of Gilda you may not have known, and not shying away from good or ill. I can't speak for those who lived during her SNL run, or read her memoirs. All I can speak for is me, and I found it did a fine job. It's a standard format bio-doc -- lots of archival footage, talking head shots -- so you won't find anything ground-breaking in the way the movie is constructed. But it does not shy in painting a complete portrait of the woman; someone who fought her weight and appearance her entire life, someone who lost her father young and how it haunted her relationships going forward; how she found humor as a defense mechanism. And maybe most of all, how she loved to make people laugh and perform, but did not so much enjoy being GILDA RADNER and shouldering the burden that came with being famous. If the bio-doc has a fault, it's the selection of talking heads. The selection of her co-stars from the original SNL cast is limited to two: Chevy Chase (who was only there) and Laraine Newman. Both get, tops, sixty seconds apiece. Where's Aykroyd and Murray and Jane Curtin? Where's GE Smith, former SNL band leader and ex-husband? The pic starts with several modern female SNL cast members - Amy Poehler, Cecily Strong, Maya Rudolph -- to celebrate her influence. Why no Nora Dunn, or Julia Sweeney, or anybody from the 80's or 90's? Why is Bill Hader there at all? Why not more archival footage from Gene Wilder after her death? Those featured people are rarely given context as to why they're there, and the absences are all the more striking. It's not enough to stop this from being a sweet love letter to a comedic icon and a trailblazer. If you're a fan, or a comedy historian, it's worth the hour and a half of your time.