The comedy world has had its share of innovators over the years, those who break down walls to do something that hasn’t been seen before. It’s the perfect arena for creativity because, although people might not laugh, they will give anything a shot for the sake of humor, and perhaps nobody embodied the chaos of comedy more firmly than Andy Kaufman. He achieved that elusive dream of posthumous legendary status, but it’s not just a case of being remembered fondly now he’s dead, but that everything his career and persona stood for during his life made the perfect warm-up act to a legendary death.
Alex Braverman’s Thank You Very Much is an insightful and even-handed documentary about the life and times of Andy Kaufman, one that dares to look at its star for what he really was: messy, complex, provocative, even just a real asshole. As far as documentaries about deceased entertainers go, it does a bold job of rejecting the rose-tinted perspective that often comes with the territory. Kaufman may have been talented, but that does not negate the ways he hurt, offended and generally irritated people, and because we are afforded such a well-rounded look at him as a person, it allows us to examine his legacy and get into the nitty-gritty, past the status as a legendary comedian and into the person himself.
‘Thank You Very Much’ is Perfect For the Uninitiated

I started this whole experience as someone who didn’t really know Andy Kaufman. I knew Jim Carrey found great inspiration in him, and that the experience of becoming Kaufman for the movie Man on the Moon brought strange things out of the actor. Some say he has never quite been the same since. So I was very open to finding out exactly what it was about this Andy Kaufman guy that was so compelling, and brought such wild reactions out of people. Turns out, even the people who knew him intimately still can’t quite put their finger on it. That was Kaufman’s USP: he was unknowable, unintelligible, and he liked it that way.
The movie is, at first glance, your average documentary about a popular figure in the entertainment industry, taking you through their life and major achievements in largely chronological order. But what you quickly notice about Thank You Very Much is that while Kaufman did have these milestones — joining the cast of SNL, working on the sitcom Taxi — his life story is more of a slow unraveling that you have to see to believe. He is introduced to us as some sort of mad genius, whose quirks couldn’t possibly result from anything other than childhood trauma. His father and best friend dig into it, explaining that young Andy’s best friend was his grandfather, and that when he died, his parents couldn’t bring themselves to tell the kid, so they lied and said that the old boy was just traveling. Little Andy would sit for hours at a time, staring out the window, looking for his grandfather to eventually come home. He never did.
‘Thank You Very Much’ Exposes a Life of Pure Fantasy

Image via ABC

According to Kaufman’s closest associates, this one incident was the catalyst for a lifetime of dysfunction and brilliance. His first gig, as a child himself, was entertaining at kids’ parties, which he said was the only thing that could stop him feeling sad. What a terrible, troubling thing for such a young person to feel. Clearly, Kaufman was a highly emotional person, but it seems what he did with that emotion was to bend it out of shape and throw it back at people, almost daring them to react. It is with this in mind that the documentary takes you through Kaufman’s remarkably short life, wanting the viewer to understand where this utterly irreverent and outrageous character came from, and why he chose to live a complete fantasy.
As the documentary unravels Kaufman’s life, there are times when you think he has completely lost the plot. We see the characters he played on stage and behind the scenes, and how his life so severely blurred the lines between the two. A recording of his fight with fellow actor Judd Hirsch on the set of Taxi catches the two coming to blows, and even in the heat of the moment, Kaufman does not drop the character he is playing. He simply will not snap out of it, and understandably, people find that infuriating about him. His need for characters as an outlet for his deeper feelings or inhibitions is a central fixture of the movie, and we get a variety of takes from his friends and family that are as insightful as they can be, considering that even Kaufman’s nearest and dearest were little more than front-row audience members.
This is one of the most interesting entertainment documentaries of recent memory simply because its subject is so incredibly elusive. Having lived life in the public eye, there is plenty of information about Andy Kaufman’s life and work, so there’s more than enough to fill the runtime of a documentary. But because Kaufman’s existence was, as he once expressed to a friend, “one long, confusing, beautiful performance,” his life story comes with an overgenerous helping of intrigue. Nobody could really figure this guy out, or decide where his performance ended and his real life began. But they do offer little snippets of insight, such as his deep affinity with Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, and his involvement in Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s transcendental meditation movement that was so big in the ’70s.
Braverman Takes an Even-Handed and Uncompromising Approach to His Subject

Image via NBC

Ultimately, Braverman’s documentary captures not only this enigmatic performer, but also the wider world of entertainment around him. The ’70s comedy scene is fleshed out, with the help of contributors like Danny DeVito and Steve Martin, and presented as a place and time where anything was possible. The artistic world was all about trying out the new and the unusual back then, and so, as strange (you might even say unfunny) as Kaufman’s acts seem today, we can at least appreciate why someone like him would have made it big when he did. For a brief time, the entertainment world was open to the oddballs and outcasts, until even Kaufman was considered over. His downfall is arguably more interesting than his rise to fame, and when even your closest friends doubt that you’re really dead, you know you’ve spent a life screwing with people good and proper. And even after it all, those same people seem deeply moved, forty years later, by the loss of this chaotic, caustic provocateur.
This strange tale leaves you in a state of incredulity. You’ve never seen performance art like it. It could well be that Andy Kaufman dedicated his entire life to the world’s most elaborate and incessant trolling. For him, comedy wasn’t confined to the stage or screen. It wound its roots through every facet of life, work, leisure, and even death. People hurt him, and he hurt people. He was the furthest thing from a cut-and-dry nice guy who would be fondly remembered for making people laugh. He courted controversy by any means necessary, and Braverman does not shy away from the many consequences of such a life. That’s what makes this such a compelling watch. The movie shines the brightest, harshest light on Kaufman, and still ends up seeing nothing more than a silhouette. What was it all about? We may never know, but Thank You Very Much is about as close as we may get.

Thank You Very Much

The inner workings of one of comedy’s most indecipherable figures are exposed… as much as they possibly can be.

Release Date

August 31, 2023

Runtime

99 minutes

Director

Alex Braverman

Producers

Rick Rubin, Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie, Morgan Neville, Ronald Bronstein, Charles Braverman, Lauren Belfer, Jenifer Westphal, Caitrin Rogers

Cast

Andy Kaufman

Self (archive footage)

Pros & Cons

Even perspective that neither deifies nor condemns its complicated subject
Serves as a great jumping-off point for those unfamiliar with Andy Kaufman’s work
Funny, insightful and sad, thanks to contributions from friends, family and associates