"Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind" (2018 release - 117 min.) is a documentary about the life and times of comedian Robin Williams. As the documentary opens, we see robin improvise widely in an interview, while impressing a theater crowd at the same time. "Are you thinking faster than us?" asks the interviewer? Robin grins broadly. We then go back in time to his youth and high school days, and quickly we find ourselves in "Edinburgh, 1971", where he is performing "The Taming of the Shrew"... At this point we are a good 10 min. into the documentary.
Couple of comments: this is the latest bio-documentary from director Marina Zenovich, who previously has brought us documentaries about, among others, Richard Pryor and Roman Polanski. Here she tackles the ups and downs in Robin Williams' life and career. The bet moments come in the movie's first half, where we get clips, never seen before, of Robin's brilliant stand-up comedy. A slew of talking heads bring their perspective on it all, including Billy Crystal, "Mork & Mindy" co-star Pam Dawber, and, later on, Zak Williams, Robin's oldest son, now in his mid-30s. "Seeing him sharing with others was hard", admits Zak, as he rues Robin's many absences during Zak's childhood. But the bottom line was that Robin enjoyed life on stage: "On stage he was comfortable and in charge, in real life he was not", comments someone and that just about sums it up.
"Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind" premiered at this year's Sundance film festival to good acclaim, and then went straight to HBO, which is where I caught it on HBO On Demand recently. The documentary is well made, no doubt. The last half hour, though, is pretty tough to watch, for obvious reasons. If you are a fan of Robin Williams, I'd readily suggest you check this out and draw your own conclusion.
