The problem with stories about recovering drug addicts is that they are all exactly the same. The arc is so similar it can be written in stone easy. Even the new Stephen King novel (his “The Shining” sequel) “Doctor Sleep” is the same story when it is about an alcoholic -the story is a bore as it goes through the same old same old, rock bottom, AA, 12 steps, God, serenity, etc etc etc.
And because of that, even with the extremeness of the great songwriter and celebrity Paul Williams smarter than the average bear huge swoops of life and death and drugs, it is still a story often told.
This hurts Stephen Kessler’s two and a half year friendship and filming with Paul Williams, the diminutive Grammy Award winning singer who disappeared in a trail of drugs and drink, reliving his father’s disastrous existence, before joining Alcoholics Anonymous and going straight. Twenty odd years sober, Paul is the head of ASCAP and getting raves from Elaine Stritch when I caught him at Cafe Carlyle earlier this year.
Stephen joins Paul somewhere between his life as a has been and return as a star; he followed Paul from the Dominican Republic to Hollywood to middle America, where Paul, all ego drained out of him through the recovery process treats Stephen and everybody around him with supernatural kindness and patience.
Paul and his entourage are somewhere between sad and strange, the way other people’s houses are always strange and Paul is bemused and irritated and finally accepting of Stephen’s obsessive feeling. Slowly but surely Paul opens up completely and what we see is regret and strngth, we see Paul accepting a moment that has passed, that his addictions caused him to lose his grip on, but a life filled with love and recovery and a present day. Archive film, of which there is plenty, is the equivalence of a modern day relaity show. Paul coked up, drunk, sky high, on talk shows and game shows, just a complete mess. The gift gone.
And then we see him today and he is all the way back.
And while we know the story, it is none the less very uplifting. Williams last album was the excellent “I’m Going Back There Someday” and during the ending credits there is a new song. The good news is that he is indeed better. Kessler’s movie is like Williams, the trajectory, the reaching back to the ending, can be sad and painful but it is so sweet and good natured you can see why Paul let him come along and document it. If the story of alcoholism is obvious, Williams story has some strange things to show us along the way.
Grade: A-