Review: Thank You Very Much

For those that are new to Andy Kaufman's unique brand of surrealist performance art, Thank You Very Much is a squirmy-yet-alluring portrait of the confusing, infuriating, and occasionally endearing guy who so convincingly befuddled the masses that none of us are sure, even decades later, that he didn't fake his own death over 40 years ago. 

For those that have seen the Biopic starring Jim Carrey (Man on the Moon), read the books by Kaufman's friend and partner in comedy crime, Bob Zmuda, and his girlfriend, Lynne Margulies (sister of My Breakfast with Blassie filmmaker Johnny Legend), this is well-worn territory. 

It's all here: the roots of the foreign man character at the Improvisation comedy club, Mighty Mouse on the first episode of SNL, the meteoric rise of the sitcom Taxi, the birth of bad boy Tony Clifton, professional wrestling, and a cancer diagnosis that people still question as authentic. To the credit of the filmmakers, they've assembled this material into an extremely watchable documentary that embodies the same dream-like reality that Kaufman's performance art often occupied, using bizarre film footage, old VHS tapes, and archival materials that are intentionally purposed here to induce disorientation. 

Along the way, we hear new recollections from Steve Martin, Danny DeVito, Marilu Henner, Bob Zmuda, Lynne Margulies, and a handful of others who were either front row to the madness or who were directly affected by it. 

There is at least one new wrinkle here that I don't recall ever being explored, at least not to the depths that it's mined in this documentary: a traumatic childhood event involving Andy's grandfather is traced and likely identified as the source of his neurosis, leading to a hunger for attention while also simultaneously pushing people away so they couldn't get too close or see the real person behind the performance. The film presents a convincing argument that this childhood event was the catalyst that created both the man and the monster. 

There's another key moment in the film that also serves as a Rosetta Stone for unlocking Kaufman's entire language: Andy was not a comedian, he was an artist who wanted to get a reaction out of people. Whether the reaction was good or bad was unimportant to him; what mattered was performance. Several of the talking heads then elaborate on how America itself is made up entirely of these sorts of conmen, grifters, and actors, from the heads of companies to the office of the president. Nobody believes the things they say, it's all a performance. One person notes that Andy held up a mirror to America, reflecting who we are back at us, and that we did not like what we saw. 

It's an astute observation: that Andy Kaufman was showing us who we really are. He was us--both the good and the bad, the kind and the cruel. He was the dichotomy of our psyches, and while he was probably a genius, he also pushed buttons that we would rather remain untouched. 

Thank You Very Much is a compulsively-watchable chronicle of a fascinating man that we will probably never truly know. But through archival footage and recollections from those who knew him--if such a thing is truly possible--better than anyone, it's as close as we're going to get to the man behind the curtain.