Anyone who’s encountered the comedy of Maria Bamford already knows that there’s really no one like her. Her voice, her stage presence, and her vulnerability add up to a comic who is truly singular in the contemporary landscape. And don’t just take our word for it; Conan O’Brien, Patton Oswald, Stephen Colbert, and many more offer their own praise of the comedian in the trailer for Paralyzed By Hope: The Maria Bamford Story. The new documentary from Judd Apatow arrives on Netflix next month.
An official synopsis for the doc reads:
Maria Bamford has built a career on turning radical honesty into radical comedy — often blurring the line between performance and personal crisis. In this documentary, co-directors Judd Apatow and Neil Berkeley trace her path from a childhood in Duluth, Minnesota, through discovering a love of performance in college, to hard-won fame in Los Angeles while closely following her present day life for almost four years. Also featuring hilarious clips from her stand-up specials and testimonials from fellow comedians who admire her singular voice, the film doesn’t shy away from the harder material: Bamford’s mental health journey and pivotal family relationships that shaped her along the way. The result is a portrait that’s as funny as it is tender, capturing an artist who has made a career of finding laughter inside the hardest truths.
Bamford’s had a working relationship with Netflix for a while, with her loosely autobiographical series Lady Dynamite running on the streamer for two seasons in 2016 and 2017. Perhaps the series can serve as a good primer for the uninitiated before Paralyzed By Hope arrives on October 23.
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