The last time I saw Maria Bamford it was at the Leicester Square Theatre in 2018. I remember it not so much for her performance but for the crowd. I’ve never felt such anticipation in an audience. It really was electric. This was a house full of truly devoted fans.
And watching Paralyzed by Hope: The Maria Bamford Story, you can see why she inspires such devotion. Bamford may not be a big star but she is a true one-off, blazing a trail as a distinctive, honest, open comedian.
We might have once called her an ‘oddball’ or 'kooky' but this film, by Judd Apatow and Neil Berkeley, goes way deeper than this. Bamford’s comedy, as well as her life, is rooted in her mental health condition. It’s not quite clear why she has struggled with mental illness, she had a pretty stable suburban middle class upbringing (although as a child she did sometimes like to fake her own death using ketchup as blood), but it has had a huge impact on her career.
Bamford was one of the first stand-ups to talk about mental health and even suicidal ideation onstage. She has spent time in hospital but always returns to comedy, albeit on her own terms. Towards the end of the film she seems content doing gigs at 8am in the local clown theatre (although on her website she currently has tour dates too and played a big gig in London earlier this year).
It has certainly been an eventful life and Paralyzed by Hope picks out various significant career bullet points supported by clips and interviews with contemporaries such as Patton Oswalt. She has had a number of brushes with bigger fame. She was the face of an ad campaign for Target shops but had ethical misgivings. Netflix gave her her own absurdist series, Lady Dynamite, but it was just too off the wall. Netflix boss Ted Sarandos loved it though: “it’s so raw and real and vulnerable you’re all in for the ride.”
She clearly likes to do things her own way. A recent Netflix special was filmed in front of her parents. Nobody else. Just her parents. Maybe the family dynamic is more complex than even this skilful, probing film can reveal. She often did impressions of her family onstage which weren’t always appreciated. Thought there was clearly love there – her eulogy at her mother’s zoom funeral during Covid is extremely moving.
I’m not sure if this film gets to the heart of understanding Bamford, but I suspect it’s as close as anything will get. One thing it underlines though is that there is nobody in stand-up comedy like her.
Watch Paralyzed by Hope: The Maria Bamford Story on Netflix.
