Remembering Gene Wilder (2023)

1h 32m / Not Rated / Biography, Documentary

TRAILER: https://youtu.be/SNCtLXOJgdg

Born Jerome Silberman, Gene Wilder’s life was one marked by public success and personal heartbreak. His breakout role as Bloom the accountant in Mel Brooks The Producers introduced audiences to Wilder’s uncanny ability to portray characters that were at once gentle and relatable, but also zany and completely unhinged (see also: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles.)

But behind the scenes, Wilder’s life was, in many ways, more tragedy than comedy. He lost his mother to ovarian cancer when he was 23, and his wife, Gilda Radner, to the same disease in 1989. Ten years later, he battled non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma into remission with chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant, but later died of complications from Alzheimer’s disease at the age of 83.

The new documentary Remembering Gene Wilder covers all of this and more through interviews with colleagues like Mel Brooks and Carol Kane, friends like Alan Alda, and fans like Harry Connick, Jr. and Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz. Parts of the story are even narrated by Wilder himself, thanks to tracks lifted from the audiobook recording of his autobiography, Kiss Me Like a Stranger.

Some critics have noted that the film glosses over (or ignores completely) some of the more… complicated… portions of Wilder’s life: his four marriages and less successful film endeavors, for example. It is not a comprehensive cataloging of his entire biography. But fans will appreciate the opportunity to remember some of their favorite moments and characters and celebrate his remarkable life and career.