‘Marty, Life Is Short’ movie review: Lawrence Kasdan’s Netflix documentary about his warm, big-hearted friend Martin Short

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Lawrence Kasdan’s accent Marty, life is shorta 101-minute tribute and celebration of Martin Short, was picked up at the last minute before the closing credits.

First, Short’s latex-buried character, Jiminy Glick, scoffs at the very idea of ​​making a documentary about Martin Short.

“They’re making a documentary about literally every human being who ever existed,” says the reliably clownish Glick, who in this case is far from wrong. Kasdan’s Netflix documentary interweaves several different recent docs, including heavy-hitting performances by Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and all things Saturday Night Liveone can imagine that his biggest hurdle was avoiding accidentally putting a different documentary film crew in the back of his footage.

Just seconds later, Kasdan concludes with title cards in loving memory of Short’s longtime collaborator Catherine O’Hara, who appears throughout the documentary, and his daughter Katherine, who does not appear.

It is a rapid emotional response, from vertigo to gravity, that embodies the journey Kasdan traces Life is short It captures Short’s life, which was marked by triumph and escalating personal tragedy.

I’m sure there’s a dry, unprofessional documentary to be made about Short’s career, his varied career arc, and his countless accomplishments, but… Life is short Mostly not this documentary.

As Kasdan and Short discuss, they have a long personal relationship, and the director approaches this project more like a curious, affectionate friend than a strict researcher of shorthand. This in turn leads to a much lesser documentary Martin Short: A versatile comedic genius And much more Martin Short: The lovably damaged celebrity party host. The initial feeling that this might be a short gift sale, well, the “short sale” passes quickly. Martin Short seems to be a state of mind, not as remote and inaccessible as you might think from the outside, and one that we would all benefit from tapping into.

Marty, life is short It is, like everything else, a documentary about the indefinability of failure or tragedy.

“I would say my career was 80 percent a failure, and I think those are pretty good odds,” Short says at the beginning of the documentary. Later, this number was raised to 90 percent. Recounting the wisdom given to him by Short, John Mulaney quotes a “98 percent” failure rate. This isn’t how I think of Martin Short’s career, but if you actually review his credits… he’s not wrong.

Kasdan and Short’s relationship goes back to Cross my heartwhich is a romantic comedy film produced by Kasdan, and I think it is successful because it was shown on HBO in the late 1980s, in addition to Three friends and Interior space. I think all those movies were huge hits, but they weren’t, and they weren’t Pure luck, Three escapees, Captain Ron or Clifford. (There are clips from Mumfordwhich Kasdan directed and co-starred Short, but they did not discuss that collaboration. I don’t think so Mumford as a blow.)

But if you live joyfully enough and choose your projects based on the characters you want to play and the people you want to work with, failures probably won’t persist in the same way they might for someone whose work-life balance swings toward the “work” side. And deriving enjoyment from every moment from the “life” aspect makes it easier to not dwell on the bad things that happen. Sure, Short’s record has enough sad data points — a brother and his parents died during an eight-year period of his youth, his wife of 30 years died in 2010, and his daughter died earlier this year — but it doesn’t seem like it does. (Neither O’Hara’s death nor his daughter’s death are discussed in the documentary.)

As a documentary subject, Short sometimes spends more time glossing over the process than getting serious, forcing Kasdan to use the more reflective, and perhaps more structured, conversations that Short has had over his career as a talk show guest everywhere. What Kasdan gets up to frequently is Short happily re-enacting the breakfast he explains he actually ate or expanding on his on-stage banter with Steve Martin in the make-up segment on Murders only in the building.

What’s strange is that even when he’s joking, Short doesn’t appear to be “on” in these conversations, especially since we know from those decades of appearances on talk shows everywhere how obsessive and unpredictable Martin Short can be. He’s just a good-natured person with a good sense of humor – in contrast to his prickly and varied manner. Three friends The co-stars turned to the directors of their latest doc — trying to balance asides with personal memories. Here it is as if Kasdan is the guest and Short seeks to make him comfortable.

The best stories from Short’s past often come from those closest to him, including Eugene Levy, Andrea Martin and O’Hara, who tell tales of their return to college, the amazingly star-studded original Toronto crew. Gods magic, SCTV And more. A more rounded picture is presented by people variously associated with Short such as his son Oliver, his brother Michael, the A-list group on his birthday party invitation list, and his summer lake cabin, a group that includes Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and more.

The home movie footage from those gatherings is stunning, capturing both Short as a buffoonish host and Short as a general facilitator of joy — including a priceless moment in which Short and Hanks recreate the final scene of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kidportrayed by Spielberg as a qualified video camera master.

The short stories and stories captured on home movies are, more than anything else, a love story, centering on a relationship with Nancy Dollman that has lasted since 1972. Gods magic Produced—featuring Short, Levy, Martin, Victor Garber, Gilda Radner, and Dave Thomas, and will be the subject of an upcoming documentary—until 2010. As was also the case with Judd Apatow’s recent two-part Mel Brooks film and its treatment of the Brooks/Anne Bancroft marriage, Kasdan’s film emphasizes the nourishing value of a special relationship over the devastation of loss. While Short is, in many respects, undeniably gorgeous, his love story is presented as simultaneously private and mundane. His life and career are treated in the same way.

This is why Jiminy Glick’s joke and double devotion hit so hard. Kasdan includes material on the origins of Short’s comedic voice — there’s a reiteration of how the documentary dealt with his autobiography during his youth, which I found baffling — and the voices of characters like Glick and Ed Grimley, but it’s not a dissection of the career of a wacky actor. Some viewers might want more of that, frankly, but there’s a quiet, effective power to the story Kasdan wanted to tell.