And Everything Is Going Fine

Director: Steven Soderbergh
Year Released: 2010
Rating: 3.0

Soderbergh, who previously collaborated with the late Spalding Gray on Gray's Anatomy and King of the Hill, staples together film and video clips of his performances and interviews for this tribute/eulogy, starting with his early days with the formidable Wooster Group and closing on his final years after a debilitating car accident.  While watching I kept weighing in my head whether or not the director's approach - of what's essentially a string of clips from YouTube - is artistically lazy or 'just right' before I came to the conclusion that the less Soderbergh has to do with the storytelling the better: it is, admittedly, a careful assemblage of pieces, but what better way to tell the story of Gray's life than Gray himself ... and, ultimately, he was always his own worst enemy.  Soderbergh and editor Susan Littenberg make sure to highlight their subject's own suicidal ideation - starting with his obsession with his mother's suicide - and show that it really was no surprise that the emotionally damaged actor would take his life by leaping into the East River.