“Take your broken heart, make it into art.” That was Meryl Streep at last weekend’s Golden Globe Awards ending her lifetime achievement speech with a quote by her friend Carrie Fisher. Despite working as a suitable mantra for much of Fisher’s autobiographical work, a broken heart lingers over Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, not just because the pair passed away in quick succession leaving behind generations of fans whose lives were forever changed by this most unique mother and daughter team.
No, there is also the very real breaking heart of Fisher who saw her mother’s health deteriorating and decided she needed to document her mother while she still had the chance. How was she or any of us to know the tragic circumstances that would befall the two of them and surround Alexis Bloom and Fisher Stevens’ documentary.
Of course, the obvious comparison is the Maysles brothers’ justifiably classic Grey Gardens. For many reasons, too, not just because of the wacky mother and daughter relationship at its heart. Reynolds and Fisher share a frequency that nobody else, not even Todd Fisher who appears throughout, can penetrate. It goes far beyond just singing songs or slinging sly, winking insults at one another (and themselves). They act like giddy sisters in on a secret more than mother and daughter and it's an absolute delight to watch.
Fisher settles in as the film’s dominant face given her mother’s health, and perhaps because of this the film isn’t the eulogy a typical biographic documentary about her aging mother could have easily been (something that would have usually only been heightened by their deaths). Fisher’s wit and her genuine forthrightness, plus her openness in showing her quirks (like her dog, Gary) and flaws (like her addiction to Coca Cola) make it impossible for Bright Lights to slip into morbid requiem. Bloom and Stevens take a rightfully celebratory tone to the material that eloquently juxtaposes the pains both literal (Reynolds suffers a bruising fall) and figurative (Fisher is essentially forced to lose weight for The Force Awakens) and in the past (Debbie's much-publicised divorces; Carrie's bi-polar diagnosis and drug addictions) with the joys that each of them find in each other and in their sudden returns to the spotlight with third act revivals: Reynolds' farewell cabaret tour and Fisher's returns to the Star Wars universe. Like its subjects, this is a film that doesn't allow itself the time to feel sorry for itself and the giddiness of its great highs ultimately shine brighter than the lows.
Bright Lights is way too short, probably. I could have watched these two across a movie twice as long. They’re clearly more interesting than just about every other celebrity (two-bit of legitimate) who allows cameras to follow their day to day lives. I could watch another full 90-minute documentary simply looking at all the bric-a-brac collectables that Fisher filled her home with.
Of course, completely unbeknownst to Fisher at the time, in wanting to give her mother the appropriate farewell that she deserved, gave herself a final standing ovation in the process and the film works remarkably well as an appropriate farewell to both, acknowledging what made them important and beloved but also completely relevant. Bright Lights would have likely been a potent film even before their deaths. In the harsh glow of 2017, it's a potent reminded of what we have lost, but also what we have been so lucky to have had at all.
Release: Available now on HBO Go, HBO Now and On Demand in America, on FoxtelGo in Australia, and airs today on SkyAtlantic in the UK.
Oscar Chances: Unlike most HBO documentaries, I'm unaware of Bright Lights getting a theatrical release prior to its hurried TV premiere so it likely won't even be eligible. Even if it were, the doc branch is oddly resistent to films about Hollywood (unlike the rest of the Academy, it would seem). Although, it's certainly a doc that has permeated through pop culture more than most.