You might fairly ask if I\u2019d have given four stars to \u201cBright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds\u201d if this iconic mother-daughter team hadn\u2019t died within a day of one another last week.
You might fairly ask if HBO moved up the release of Alexis Bloom and Fisher Stevens\u2019 documentary to Jan. 7 to maximize viewer interest.
I can\u2019t speak for HBO execs\u2019 motives. Given their channel\u2019s enormous financial success and given their track record for respecting artistry, and knowing it\u2019s not as if an earlier release date for a documentary would make THAT much of a difference to their profit margin, I prefer to believe they\u2019re sharing this amazing, wonderful, funny, fascinating, insightful film now because now is the time.
As for MY reaction to the film\u2026
I watched it mere days after we lost Carrie and Debbie. It would be disingenuous and insulting for me to say I wasn\u2019t thinking about that as I experienced the film.
But that\u2019s not why I\u2019m giving it four stars. That\u2019s not why I\u2019m telling you it\u2019s one of the best buddy comedies I\u2019ve seen in years. That\u2019s not why I\u2019m saying it\u2019s a beautifully filmed, whip-smart, perfectly edited love letter to a legendary mother-daughter duo that respects and honors their relationship without sugarcoating their troubled and checkered history.
I\u2019m saying all that because all that is all that.
Debbie Reynolds holds her new baby, Carrie Fisher, in an archival family photo seen in \u201cBright Lights.\u201d | HBO
The first five minutes of \u201cBright Lights\u201d set the tone and let us know this is something special. As we see home movies of an impossibly young and unbearably adorable Debbie Reynolds with her two young children, Carrie and Debbie argue with one another, and Carrie challenges her mother: \u201cWho gets what in the will?\u201d
Cut to footage from the recent past. Carrie is in her late 50s; Debbie is in her 80s. They live in neighboring houses on a compound built by the actor Robert Armstrong, who in the 1933 version of \u201cKing Kong\u201d famously said, \u201cTwas beauty killed the beast.\u201d
As they say: You cannot make this s\u2014 up.
Carrie tells us she wishes her mother would retire, but standing in front of her mom\u2019s wishes is like \u201cstanding in front of a \u2014 what are those called? \u2014 not tiramisu. Tsunami. She\u2019s Tsu-Mommy.\u201d
We bounce back and forth between Carrie\u2019s home, which includes such features as a \u201cStar Wars\u201d sculpture intended as a sexual device, to Debbie\u2019s home, which looks exactly like a legendary movie star\u2019s home: a little bit amazing, a little bit sad.
\u201cThis is the bathroom,\u201d says Carrie as she gives a tour of her mother\u2019s home. \u201cIt has, as a lot of bathrooms should, a player piano.\u201d
Debbie fumbles with a story. Carrie says, \u201cThat\u2019s one of the great things about losing your memory \u2014 so many surprises.\u201d
But there\u2019s no trace of meanness or bitterness in their dynamic. They\u2019re at peace with where they are, and they are true best friends. Even with all their fame and all their wealth, Debbie and Carrie will remind you of so many mothers and daughters of that age that have become best pals but still have that mom-daughter thing going on.
Directors Alexis Bloom and Fisher Stevens have a masterful touch. The duo clearly are huge fans of Carrie and Debbie, and obviously the directors have gained their trust \u2014 but when the time comes for Stevens to ask a poignant question off-screen to move things along, or to even enter the frame, he\u2019ll do so.
\u201cBright Lights\u201d reminds us Debbie Reynolds was a gigantic star, and her husband Eddie Fisher (Carrie\u2019s father) was an even bigger star for a few years, and when Eddie left Debbie for Elizabeth Taylor, it was the scandal of the 1950s \u2014 but eventually Debbie and Liz became friends.
As for Eddie Fisher, onetime teen idol and mega-selling artist, who abandoned his wife and children, got hooked on crystal meth and lost everything: Carrie\u2019s visit to her dying father is unforgettable.
\u201cStar Wars\u201d fanatics are sure to love Carrie\u2019s comments after she finally started attending fan conventions and embracing her legacy as Princess Leia: \u201cI\u2019m her custodian and I\u2019m as close as you\u2019re gonna get [to her]. She\u2019s me and I\u2019m her. They talk to me like I\u2019m Princess Leia. \u2026 It\u2019s nice. They\u2019re nice.\u201d
But for all the scenes of Debbie performing onstage at the South Point in Vegas, and Carrie telling stories about her life at the apex of her fame, and all the footage reminding us they were two major stars, my favorite moments in \u201cBright Lights\u201d are the small, quiet scenes when mother and daughter are chasing their respective dogs around, sharing breakfast, launching into a duet just for fun, or bickering in that way a mom and daughter bicker after 60 years together, and no, you couldn\u2019t possibly understand us.<\/p>\n

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\nSimilarity rank: 2.1\n<\/div>\n

Sentiment rank: 5.4<\/div>\n

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