Movie Review 'Love, Gilda'

I was concerned going to into Love, Gilda that the movie wouldn't have much to tell me about Gilda Radner that I didn't already know. As a devotee of Radner for years and years, I felt I had her down pretty well. I admired her deeply and I have read her biography, It's Always Something, more than once. What could a documentary possibly tell me?

It turns out, Love, Gilda has a great deal to tell us about this icon, even if we felt we already knew these stories. Director Lisa D'Apolito uses Gilda Radner's own words to amazing effect, allowing us a new insight into someone we all feel like we already knew. Even the familiar stories feel new again in this remarkable documentary.

Love, Gilda tells Gilda Radner's story from the very beginning, her having been born in Detroit, moving to Canada, falling in love and out of love, a lovely chat with Martin Short, before getting us on to New York City where she was "the girl" at The National Lampoon, alongside John Belushi, Harold Ramis and Bill Murray.

And then there was Saturday Night Live. We here, from Gilda's own writing how she coped with not being "one of the boys" and the clever ways she would work around being "the girl" in a sketch. The boys would write sketches where they needed a waitress or a nurse and Gilda would do it but find ways to slip in her stuff in between the boys noise.

She was destined to break out, even if she didn't realize it herself. There is much talk of neuroses and insecurity in this section of movie, including a harrowing and insightful look at Gilda's battle with an unspecified eating disorder, but what you come away with from the SNL section of Love, Gilda is just how her talent could not be denied.

Watch those early seasons of SNL and you will find a rather surprising reliance on Gilda as the go to performer. As the film mentions, when SNL needed time filled, it wasn't Chevy or John that was sent out on stage to riff an off the cuff bit, it was Gilda, talking about what she ate that day. When someone was needed to open the show, it was Gilda, standing before the crowd, shouting the iconic opening phrase. Not every time but many times.

This part of the film is exciting and insightful as well as deeply nostalgic. But, it is, of course, the final act of Love, Gilda where the movie becomes almost unbearably emotional. Even those of us who have read Gilda's bestselling book about her life and cancer battle, will be hard pressed not to get deeply emotional about the sights and scenes of the final minutes of Love, Gilda.

Watching the way her spirit endured, the inspiring strength of her humor, is incredibly powerful. It's unendingly sad but the legacy is inspiring and that keeps this from being painful. The voiceover in Gilda's voice from her diaries and random notebooks keeps things in a very unique and very Gilda Radner perspective.

I completely adore this documentary. Even as I felt there wasn't anything new I could be told about Gild Radner, I found that I did not need revelations or surprises or the things that had never been published before, in order to connect deeply to this movie. Lisa D'Apolito has made such a wonderfully sweet and compassionate portrait of Gilda that I wish she would make it again and again, year after year, just so that no one is ever allowed to forget her.