Andrea Martin: Nine Lives... and Counting!
2024 · 4m · Canada
Directed by Michelle Mama
Tones: humorous, theatrical
Comedic performer Andrea Martin's career moves from Godspell through SCTV characters to later stereotype-defying roles. Reinvention threads through stage and screen highlights.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
It's a hagiography wrapped in gags—the safe choice for a performer's retrospective, which is exactly why it doesn't interest me; give me a doc that interrogates the myth instead of celebrating it.
A formally assured portrait that understands how to construct a career arc through montage and performance—the editing rhythm honors both the vaudeville tradition Andrea mines and the grammar of contemporary documentary comedy.
The decision to let Andrea's own comedic timing carry the narration rather than overlay a neutral voice gives the whole thing a personality most performer docs miss; that one structural choice makes it feel authored instead of obligatory.