André Is Idiot review – A very funny and painfully honest film about facing death | film

TThere are about a million movies out there – fiction, non-fiction, and everything in between – about people dealing with cancer, so I applaud the team behind this film for finding a relatively new way to tackle this topic. San Francisco resident Andre Ricciardi—an ever-wise former advertising executive, fun-loving semi-reformist, father of two teenage girls and loving husband to his wife, Janice—was only in his early 50s when he realized he had made a huge mistake when he passed up the opportunity to have a colonoscopy with his best friend, Lee Einhorn. Because just a year or so after he was going to have a colonoscopy, he found out he had stage 4 colon cancer which if it had been caught earlier would have been much more treatable. the curse.

With the help of director Tony Penna and the film crew, Ricciardi goes on a mission to create, among other goals, an unconventional public service announcement in the form of this film to persuade (American) viewers not to be stupid like him and to have a colonoscopy whenever possible after the age of 45. (In the United Kingdom, this procedure is not automatically offered by the NHS, although home stool immunochemical tests are recommended every two years after a certain age). Ricciardi is even teaming up with colleagues at his old ad agency to advise on an ingenious PSA campaign that uses fruit and other everyday objects with vaguely shaped holes to raise awareness.

But most of the film consists of Ricciardi’s struggle against death by light, recounting the discomfort of recovering from chemotherapy (years of drinking alcohol have proven useful training, he says), the ridiculous indignities of radiotherapy and other treatments, bizarre side effects like eyelashes growing longer than usual, inept bedside manners by medical professionals, and administrative bungling that punctuates the process. A naturally funny man, Ricciardi realizes that he uses humor as a defense. The film follows suit, even going so far as to create funny little stop-motion animation scenes showing a young Andre in all his disheveled glory, wearing sneakers and a hospital gown, enduring various treatments.

But as Ricciardi approached the end, he spoke to the camera about his feelings of sadness, anger and sadness. In fact, the therapist encourages him to “be generous and let others.” [his daughters] “He feels sad,” and reminds him that he doesn’t have to make them laugh all the time. There is nothing radical or groundbreaking about the message or the making of the film on display here, but the honesty of Ricciardi and Janis, and indeed the honesty of everyone around him, proves extremely poignant in the long run, confirming that there are as many ways to confront death as there are to live life.