My Friend Paul . Austin Chronicle . 03-29-99

My Friend Paul

DIRECTED BY: Jonathan Berman

REVIEWED: 03-29-99

When filmmaker Alan Berman found himself adrift without a compelling project, a film about his wild-card childhood friend, Paul, who was just finishing 10 years in the big house for bank robbery, seemed just the engaging ticket for two old friends, both at loose ends, but for different reasons. The film would not only explore the question of where Paul's indomitable drive and creativity took a wrong turn from promising to drugs, crime, and mental illness but also, and not so incidentally, cast some light on Alan as well. The project turned out to be fairly bumpy, fraught with unforeseeable obstacles, not least of which was the serious mental illness that lay just beneath the surface of Paul's seeming lucidity and self-possession. As he struggles to find his film in Paul's story, Alan finds himself diverted by extraneous issues having more to do with the obligations and limits of their friendship than with the film itself. The result is fairly unfocused, more of a personal documentary, which unfolds in fits and starts but, oddly enough, becomes all the more interesting because of its lack of direction.

--Anne S. Lewis

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