André Is an Idiot
Fifty year old André Ricciardi rejected a good friend's idea of getting dual colonoscopies, thinking he was the fittest he'd been in his life, having quit drinking and dropped thirty pounds riding a Peloton. At fifty-two, he assumed the blood he was passing was due to a hemorrhoid from riding the bike, but when he found out that no, he had stage 4 colon cancer, even his own mother said "André Is an Idiot."
Laura's Review: B+
As related by André, that quote from his mom actually included an f bomb accentuating the 'idiot' and director Tony Benna introduces us to his subject with various friends making similar observations, but affectionately, and also modified with frequent uses of the word 'genius' as we witness the man rummaging around in a closet looking for a pair of Kim Kardashian's pleather pants he won in an auction. He was planning on scraping DNA off them and cloning her, a project that apparently never saw fruition.
André looks great when we first meet him, a kind of old school hippie type with long, wiry hair frequently gathered into man bun. Wielding the documentary's clapboard himself, he frequently addresses the camera centered behind a bare table and the first tale he tells is about the first time he thought he was an idiot, a squirm inducing story about dealing with multiple splinters in the head of his penis after a masturbation misadventure in his grandparents' bathroom when he was thirteen. He also agrees that his current situation does indeed make him an idiot.
After this introduction, the filmmakers jump off into the incredible story of how André ended up married to his wife Janice, a Lisa Kudrow lookalike from Canada, and it is a long, twisty, funny tale best enjoyed unspoiled. Janice is interviewed sitting in their kitchen, explaining that she also didn't realize the importance of colonoscopies, and has been enjoying spending more time with André. As the film progresses, reality hits Janice harder, who is there for André throughout. Their two teenaged daughters describe an unconventional childhood that stressed pursuits of curiosity over physical affection, a childhood they both embrace, one telling us about a nurse's reaction to finding her dad reading 'Helter Skelter' to her as she lay in a hospital bed.
It is both surprising and not to discover a creative personality like André ended up in advertising, something he now condemns as a wasted life, but which comes in awfully handy for his highly amusing colonoscopy campaign. His unique sense of humor was responsible for 20th Century Fox's 'the apes are winning' campaign for "The Planet of the Apes," but until he meets with his former ad agency Mekanism to toss around hilarious ideas using things that resemble assholes, we learn little of his professional past. He spends a lot of time with his best friend Lee, the guy who'd proposed those dual colonoscopies, including a Winnebago road trip where they 'see nothing.' Older brother Nick makes frequent appearances, asking what he'll do when things get really awful ('drink Drano and donate my body to television'), but when their dad cannot be convinced to appear on camera they hire Tommy Chong to play him.
But while André's irreverent sense of humor is front and center, we check in on the cancer's progression more and more frequently as the film goes on. We'll see him losing hair. Janice is sad but André makes stop motion puppets wearing his favored sneakers out of it (the filmmakers also use stop motion animation, featuring an adorable rendition of André, to visualize his ideas). We'll see him dosing chemotherapy at home, wondering why health professionals practically wear Hazmat suits to administer stuff that he's asked to mainline. He talks about hiding the worst aspects of his disease from his kids, but shows us the transformation his body has gone through in front of a full length mirror. Three years and two months after he received his diagnosis, André looks like Michael Palin's emaciated, manacled prisoner in "The Life of Brian." As dad, Chong gives him the profound advise to 'be generous and let them feel sad,' regarding his family.
Benna's documentary begins with zaniness, incorporating everything from game shows to toilet POV shots, gradually leaning into harsh reality and the spiritual. André lived life well, serving up his death as a helpful and humorous warning to the rest of the human race.
Robin's Review: B+
Joint Venture releases "André Is an Idiot" in NY on 3/6/26, then wide on 3/20/26.
