‘André Is an Idiot’ Review: Jokes, Tears and Colonoscopy Reminders in the Cancer Diary of a Born Eccentric

variety.com:

Guy Lodge Film Critic It’s usually seen as a slight on a documentary to liken it to a public service announcement. However, given that the late André Ricciardi — star, subject and producer of “André is an Idiot” — was a successful and innovative advertising creative director in San Francisco, he probably wouldn’t mind the comparison.

For the most part, Tony Benna‘s film is an intimate, offbeat portrait of the three years that Ricciardi spent living with colonic cancer: both a candid treatment diary and a close-up character study of an unusual personality, colored by Ricciardi’s own peculiar and unyielding sense of humor.

But it also functions as a straightforward message movie. “Get yourself a fucking colonoscopy,” states a title card before the closing credits roll — not the first time the doc underlines that basic imperative.

Ricciardi, you see, did not, and this negligence ultimately cost him his life. The disease was only diagnosed at stage four, leaving remission more or less out of the question.