Steven Soderbergh’s “Everything Is Going Fine”: The Monologue At Sunset -by Iman Lababedi
We Spalding Gray fans are legion. My pal Mike Blauner got me into him late, some time during the 90s, and I caught Spalding’s last few monologues.
Personally, whatever your own value system might be, I personally believe there is a special place in heaven for the man who wrote “Monster In A Box” and “Swimming To Cambodia”. For me a man who, through his suicide, turned the last act of his life into an art installation, can’t be praised highly enough. His life was his art. When I did my TV show five years ago, Mike Blauner performed an excerpt from Gray’s masterpiece “Swimming To Cambodia” , and proved that Gray’s plays can and should be portrayed by actors. So this is not an solipsistic artistry that necessarily died with him.
Director Soderbergh does Spalding proud, allowing the great man to speak directly through monologue excerpts and interviews.
There are two wonderful musical moments. One, as Spalding remembers dancing with his children to Chumbawamba’s”Tubthumping”. Spalding plays the cassette on his boombox and jumps across the stage, in joyful remembrance of one of those times when the stars align perfectly.
During the closing credits, an instrumental is heard. Written By Spalding’s son Forrest Spalding, “Sunset” is a haunted and elegiac farewell to his father.
You can see the movie for free, it is streaming online and here is the link:
