Who the heck was Andy Kaufman? It was question the avant-garde and brazenly silly performer/comedian always wanted to leave audiences asking. The central subject of the new documentary Thank You Very Much was an enigma in the world of 20th century comedy. He'd get up on-stage and lip-sync to certain portions of the Mighty Mouse theme song or do stilted impressions his own relatives. Other times, he'd transform into entirely other characters like Tony Clifton or inhabit a "heel" persona in wrestling women. The standard “take my wife…please!” jokes or any discernible punchlines of any kind were absent in his works.
What was going on here? Director Alex Braverman doesn't necessarily try to tidily answer that question in Thank You Very Much. Instead, he unfurls archival footage of Kaufman and fresh interviews with people who knew him extensively (like his Taxi co-stars or other comedy legends like Steve Martin), all of it painting an intentionally disjointed portrait of the Heartbeeps leading man. Within this feature’s 99-minute runtime, Kaufman is described as everything from “kind of a sex addict” to a playful soul who genuinely wanted to meet Howdy-Doody to a bizarre presence on the Taxi set. It’s a fittingly disorienting portrait for a performer who never played by the rules.
Braverman and editors Alan Lowe and Jared Jeter really excel in accentuating Thank You Very Much’s bewildering aesthetic in the feature’s handful of frantically cut montages. In these sequences, viewers are jostled across various points in Kaufman’s life within seconds. One minute, the man’s grandfather flickers on-screen, the next we’re watching him perform at Carnegie Hall. Combined with Christopher Bear's evocative score, these scenes convey a tremendously eerie nature that restores transgressiveness to Kaufman-affiliated imagery.
While Andy Kaufman’s genius as an absurdist and subversive comic has never wavered, modern pop culture has caught up with his oddball approach to humor. Heck, last year’s Saturday Night even used Kaufman’s Mighty Mouse schtick as a big crowdpleaser moment. That’s quite the evolution for a Saturday Night Live staple that used to drive impatient audience members into a rage-induced frenzy. Within these montages, Thank You Very Much distorts Kaufman-based material to ensure moviegoers have an experience tantamount to what 1970s viewers must’ve felt watching Kaufman’s comedy for the first time. There is no stable ground to stand on. You have no idea where this material will end up. Uncertainty consumes your body over what emotions you’re supposed to feel.
These bursts of bamboozling filmmaking are tremendously creative (not to mention unnerving) ways of echoing Kaufman’s comedic sensibilities. The rest of Thank You Very Much fits snugly into a more standard cradle-to-grave celebrity documentary form. Talking head interviews abound while the proceedings largely follow Braverman rarely deviates from charting the man’s life linear ally. It’s a serviceable vessel for Kaufman-oriented anecdotes and showcases for this comedian’s talents. However, those montages had me craving even more unorthodox visual retellings of Kaufman’s life.
Still, at least the stories folks like Danny DeVito tell about Kaufman are not standard squeaky-clean yarns spun in other celebrity documentaries. Decades later, even some of Kaufman’s closest creative companions are disoriented by the man’s sensibilities. These figures speculate plenty about the psychology behind matters like why Kaufman had to immerse himself in people like Tony Clifton. However, none of them have concrete windows into his psyche. Even archival footage of Kaufman “explaining” his creative process have an unreliable undercurrent to them. Those expecting Thank You Very Much to once and for all solidify what drove this man who was banned from Saturday Night Live will leave disappointed.
The rest of us, meanwhile, will simply enjoy this documentary for leaving Kaufman’s creative secrets in the shadows. Instead, the focus is on bizarre stories about the man’s antics, like the day he brought Clifton to the Taxi set, and emphasizing his wildly varying creative exploits. If there’s any personal element of Kaufman truly unearthed in Thank You Very Much, it’s that he was a living breathing paradox. Just look at how his violent wrestling antics were apparently inspired by his love for his wrestling-obsessed grandma. Thank You Very Much offers viewers contradictory pieces of the puzzle that was Kaufman’s life and wisely doesn’t force them into a coherent shape. It’s up to us to interpret what all these inconsistencies meant, if they even mean anything.
Perhaps Andy Kaufman’s humor was just silly nonsense for his own amusement. Certainly his schtick remains absorbing and humorous today. Thank You Very Much’s frequently standard structure is somewhat forgivable considering it houses so much amusing Kaufman footage. This includes less-famous material like him working as a busboy at a Los Angeles eatery after he’s hit the big time on Taxi. A bit where he awkwardly tries to reach for a patron’s plate while they’re eating before recoiling his hand is not just hysterical, but such a vivid precursor to Tim Robinson and Nathan Fielder’s modern style of cringe comedy.
One Thank You Very Much interview subject remarks that Kaufman’s entire comedic persona relied on that sort of awkwardness and everyone’s familiarity with social discomfort. Relying on that element served this artist well. Such vexatious material also imbues Thank You Very Much with plenty of entertainment. Alex Braverman’s cinematic ode to Andy Kaufman isn’t nearly as expectations-shattering as its central subject. However, it’s still an engaging motion picture especially excelling in eschewing concrete answers about this comedy legend. The only thing that’s for certain is that you should watch this with some milk and cookies.