Tig

I regret admitting that I didn't know more about Tig Notaro before this documentary. She was a familiar face for the past handful of years, most notably in the film In A World, but not a familiar name, bopping just below my radar. Louis C.K. was her biggest advocate so I really should've recognized her, plus she makes a couple of memorable appearances on Inside Amy Schumer which I watched recently. Netflix's documentary Tig is good catchup for anyone with a passing interest, and a brisk way to get the full story. Whereas usually documentaries about comedians don't warrant bigger screen treatment as their stories can seem trivial if they don't involve social action, Tig may be a documentary that feels slight on the surface but it's able to get very heavy in the extremely personal side. While it's primarily a survival story, there's also a sweet love story here to enjoy with her financee Stephanie Allynne that breaks the boundaries of sexuality as she never considered herself homosexual until Tig. It's just the love for another person, which is wonderful to see in any context.

The film starts out very strong - funny, tragic, and gripping. Her legendary but heard-and- not-seen performance where Tig beared her soul to the audience, beginning the show with 'I have cancer, how are you?' is a great introduction to her sense of humour and expert delivery. It may repeat its best moments later, but they still get laughs. However, as it bursts from the major struggles and focuses on the 'what now' stage of her career, the film does lose momentum, critically by the third act. Perhaps it could have embellished earlier engaging segments just a little longer to develop it a bit more. It's very easy to sympathize with her plight, including her desire to have a baby, but while we can't speak for what was going on in Tig's head at the time, the film does ignore other options to have children until near the end. It's difficult to really feel the high stakes when it comes to the second half. The doc is typically held back by its short ambitions, besides attractively composed interviews, you wish they had better footage in the verite scenes. Nevertheless, Tig is still a very funny and poignant portrait of a great modern comedienne. You come away just wishing Notaro all the best.

7/10

I love Tig. The movie captures an incredible person doing her goddamn best. I literally cried, and I came out of it a little more hopeful, at least right now. I didn't even notice if the movie was well made or making some big point or anything, I just know that it got across an incredible human struggle and an incredible human. The movie was consistently sad, consistently funny, and in depth into someone's life in a fairly unique way. No matter how you slice it, a lot of objectively interesting stuff, great and horrible, happened to Tig in a pretty short time-span, and this movie shows us how it happened. This movie probably won't change your life, but it definitely turned my day around.

I've only seen Tig's stand up a few times, at most, on late-night talk shows, but I'm a huge fan now. This film is an extremely personal look into her life after her iconic stand-up act at Largo in LA in which she joked about her being diagnosed with cancer. This film also dives into her personal relationship and is also front and center as she tries to have a baby through a surrogate. Very well-made; funny and also heartbreaking at times. Highly recommend.

What I really love about this documentary is that it puts life and death into perspective, to where they both don't seem so scary.

Although what happens to her is harrowing, I got the sense from watching this, that it was part of a grander plan - one which was meant to inspired Tig beyond her wildest dreams. And it worked. This was not only meant to give her a new lease on her comedy life, but to cause her to be an inspiration to others through that. And there's no way she could've become such an inspiration, without going through what she went through. But what I love the most about it, is that she isn't treated with pity, nor does she pity herself. She seems to come to the same conclusion that I did. There's something extraordinary at work here!

Beyond the elements of tragedy turned into motivation, there's also the theme of God's gifts to his children, showing that in our darkest times, if we pay attention, we are never truly left with nothing. Just as she was coming out of some of her most heart, wrenching days, she received the most beautiful gift of love through the recognition of her ultimate soulmate, thus showing that everything really does balance out, in one way or another.

The relationship between Tig Notaro and her wife, Stephanie Allynne is definitely like a romcom come to life! It's one of the most ideal relationships that I've ever seen! The chemistry between them just pops off the screen, and they exude, comfort, understanding, and warmth with each other. They just feel good as a pair.

So, these are the main things I got from the documentary. Now, for the Godwinks - because as my own history shows, nothing that makes this big of an impression on me, passes by without some kind of interesting synchronicity that spells out a bigger message. This time, it was kind of scary on the surface, but upon reflection, very uplifting. In short, around 20 minutes into the documentary, a photo of the ultrasound of her breast was shown, and the date on the ultrasound photo was 8/22/12 - and it just dawned on me that I'm sitting here watching it on 8/22 - so that was freaky. But, glory be, the synchronicity did not end there.

At the end of the documentary, I decided to look her up, and see what some of her favorite things are. And I realized that she likes rock music - and of course I knew that her character in Star Trek was named in honor of Joan Jett. But something that I didn't know, or didn't remember, but she was actually cast to play Joan Jett's mother in The Runaways movie (but her part was unfortunately cut out). With Joan Jett meaning so much to me personally, I'm definitely not surprised now, to learn that she has those connections, given the initial freaky number synchronicity. Joan definitely tends to be a recurring theme, a recurring sign whenever a synchronicity appears for me. It's weird, and amazing.

Discovering these cool Joan Jett connections, along with certain quotes from Tig Notaro herself that relates to what I was doing just the day before watching this documentary, and seeing her relationship, and how they met on the set of a movie about a voice coach, and I had just been studying something about voices. So no, it wasn't just that one cryptic number synchronicity - it was a lot of synchronicity. Putting it all together, the message was very personal and quite clear to me, in a positive way.

I'm so glad I watched this documentary!