Documentary Review: 'Thank You Very Much' Inside the Life of Andy Kaufman

Thank You Very Much

Directed by Alex Braverman

Written by Alex Braverman

Starring Andy Kaufman

Release Date March 28th, 2025

Published March 26th, 2025

One thing people don’t think about a lot is how many decisions are made out of a sense of insecurity. We also don’t tend to consider how a decision made by someone feeling insecure affects the rest of the world or, indeed, a nebulous future that introduces new people to that decision and the ways it changed the world. The ripple effect of Andy Kaufman’s feelings of insecurity from his childhood into adulthood is massive.

As a child, Andy Kaufman’s parents chose not to tell him that his beloved grandfather had died. Instead, they told their young, impressionable boy that he was traveling for work. This led Andy to stay in his room and stare out the window for endless hours, hoping that his grandpa would return home. The passage of time led to a deep sadness that could only be sated when Andy was performing, first performing for a fake audience in his bedroom and then, in front of neighborhood kids at birthday parties.

When this started to fail to provide him with a newfound sense of security, Andy turned to drugs and alcohol, as so many others do, and, eventually, this failed as well. Andy’s depression would always find a way to sneak back in. That’s when Andy found transcendental meditation and while he would never find security in himself, he would find a new way of coping with it, via a constant, lifelong performance that never ended. Through this performance, Andy asserted a control that others interpreted as a chaotic, unpredictable performance art. It was that but it was also Andy Kaufman exerting control over the uncontrollable.

To overcome his sense of insecurity, Andy would redefine reality to something he was in charge of. This is evident in his ‘act,’ a routine of characters and voices and long, lengthy pauses and intentional awkward silences that, due to the nature of stage performance, gave Andy a sense of control over the audience. The dynamic places all of the attention on him while asking the audience to remain quiet and focused on the performance. Thus, if Andy wanted to turn into Elvis Presley or sit down and eat a bowl of ice cream, he’s in charge, he’s controlling reality.

Andy then brought the performance off of the stage, constantly performing, controlling everyone around him via the social contract. While we were polite and confused, Andy took over, exerted his own reality where he’s a foreign man who doesn’t understand American culture, inviting you to that reality where either you go along with it, angrily reject it, or even ignore it. However you reacted to Andy Kaufman didn’t matter, your confusion meant he was in control.

Thank You Very Much isn't necessarily about Andy's insecurities and how they came to drive his unique brand of comedy, but the documentary does illustrate my point, simply by presenting Andy's many performances. Whether it's his classic appearances on SNL, his stand up spots in California or New York, or even his television career on the hit series, Taxi. Andy's depth of insecurity, his inability to trust what was real or not real, in a very human way, led him to define reality through his actions.

Take for instance a bit Andy did at the Comedy Store. Andy would come on stage in silence and set up a table and chairs. He would then pull out a pint of ice cream and proceed to prepare himself a bowl. He does this without uttering a single word. This defies the conventional expectations of a stand up comedy performance. The audience is completely at Andy's will. He can take them wherever he wants to go and they can either politely go along with it, angrily demand that he do something, or simply get up and leave. Regardless, Andy is entirely in control, he's defined the terms of reality in this moment. He used this same premise when he'd go on stage and begin to read passages from The Great Gatsby, a bit he could make last for hours if he wanted to.

The documentary hints at this idea and through remarkable archive footage and a few interviews, you can get a further sense of my thesis, that Andy Kaufman was a man driven by insecurity to create a comic reality that happened to be a work of pure genius. Insecurity might sound like a bad thing, and in excess, it certainly is. But an insecure desire to exert control over reality on the part of Andy Kaufman created one of the most unique, ingenious and unforgettable comedy careers of all time. Thank You Very Much is a wonderful documentary, and an absolute must-see.

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