Paralyzed by Hope: The Maria Bamford Story premieres October 23 on Netflix.
By Elazar Abrahams
This October, Netflix is releasing four comedy documentaries that look at performers who found very different ways to become influential. Paralyzed by Hope: The Maria Bamford Story is the most personal of the group, and unfortunately, it is also the one that worked least well for me.
Maria Bamford has built a career out of radical honesty. Her stand-up draws openly from her mental health struggles, her family relationships, and the strange, uncomfortable parts of everyday life that most comedians would rather keep hidden. The documentary, directed by Judd Apatow and Neil Berkeley, follows her from childhood in Minnesota through her career in Los Angeles and into her present-day life.
I understand why Bamford’s work means so much to people. It is valuable to see someone turn serious mental health challenges into art, especially when audiences recognize parts of themselves in that process. I also love Lady Dynamite, her Netflix series, and the documentary’s discussion of that show is easily its best section. Ted Sarandos essentially admits that Netflix probably had no business giving the series a second season because hardly anyone was watching it, but Bamford was so special that the company wanted to keep supporting her. That is a smart and revealing story about the difference between an artist’s value and an audience metric.
The problem is that I did not find enough of Bamford’s comedy funny to justify the full documentary. After watching two films on Martin Mull and Norm Macdonald filled with old clips that had me laughing out loud, I found myself sitting through many of these Bamford performances wondering what I was supposed to be getting from them. Some of her work is so aggressively alternative that it crosses over from inventive into off-putting. That is obviously subjective, and the documentary is not wrong to admire her. It just did not make me share that admiration.
There is an interesting question underneath the whole project: do comedians need tortured families and difficult childhoods to become great? Bamford’s relationship with her sister and other family members is genuinely complicated, particularly because she has made those relationships part of her act. Her parents may not have understood how early or seriously she needed treatment, and the documentary is thoughtful about the ways families can love someone while still failing to understand what they need.
That material deserves empathy, but I was not convinced it needed this particular documentary treatment. Apatow clearly respects Bamford, and the film is made with care. It simply left me with less to hold onto than the other three movies in this Netflix comedy series. I can see why Paralyzed by Hope will mean a lot to Bamford’s fans. I just was not one of the converts.
I give Paralyzed by Hope: The Maria Bamford Story a C.
