Kimball: A Movie Review

In a word: breathtaking. In two words: breath taking. Never before in modern cinema has a biopic captured the animal essence of its subject as Kimball has. In the tradition of Schindler’s List (another of Spielberg’s greats) and Renoir’s Lourve deux Monpan, Kimball paints the portrait of a man torn by solitude, mocked by children, and eaten alive by his own guilty, painful, angst-ridden, forgotten past.

The film transports us back to 53 B.C.E., shortly after the infamous assassination of Joseph Faust by (as the movie leads us to believe, though actual historians are less clear on the matter) a member of the shadowy organization known only as the “Syndicate”. Director Steven Spielberg does a marvelous job of showing us, through a montage of colorful chronological sequences, how this one event impacts the entire timeline of history, eventually leading to Winona Kimball’s spur-of-the-moment decision to get knocked up.

The second act leads us through a very touching time in young Jeff’s life. By touching, of course, I mean hitting. Barnabas Kimball (played by a fiercely hostile Jaleel White), is an unforgiving man, that spares his son no grief after the big game against Texas A&M. And the artfully crafted “sexual awareness” scene alone is sure to garner the film a few Oscar nods (notably, for costume design).

Some viewers may feel squeamish during the climax; a surgical operation that changes the protagonist’s life forever, but the graphic nature of this portion of the movie speaks very deeply about our hero’s challenge to adversity. For fifteen minutes, the audio is dubbed into Spanish (Kimball’s favorite proper adjective), and the camera zooms slowly in on his placid face while frantic, scrambling doctors and nurses pass “el scalpo” and hook up 200 CCs of “morphino”. The stark contrast between the mad, rushing world, and this brilliant man totally at peace with himself is what really makes this movie shine.

No light-hearted romp, the one drawback of Kimball is the constant sense of depression surrounding the main characters. Even the inserted stock footage clips from Kimball’s old Sheer Idiocy performances seem forced and unfunny. To see his own troupe-mates laughing at him (not with him, mind you) as he bombs on stage time after time after time left me feeling cold and unwanted, much like Jeff himself must have felt (and perhaps continues to feel, if he’s still alive, I don’t know).

Still, it’s evident that the soul of this film will win over even the most stone-faced critic. I dare you to see Kimball and not be touched. And by touched, of course, I mean hit.