Lenny (1974)

Starring: Dustin Hoffman
Grade: Classic

Lenny Bruce walked so we could run.

Summary

*The film’s narrative is non-linear and jumps all over the timeline with the main part being that of an interview taking place sometime after Lenny Bruce’s death. In-between, we get flashbacks to when Lenny and Honey Bruce were getting started in show business, and when they became stars. So, the summary might be hard to follow, but it makes perfect sense if you watch the film.*

We open with a closeup of Honey Bruce’s (Valerie Perrine) lips talking about comedian and her late husband Lenny Bruce (Hoffman) getting arrested 9 or 10 times, twice for possession of narcotics and three to four times for obscenities. Through the credits, we get a glimpse of Lenny on stage, and he does a bit about getting the clap and how no one wants to talk about it because “talking about it makes you the worst person in the community”.

In an interview later in life, Honey states how she met Lenny in 1951 in Baltimore when she was working at a strip club. In a flashback, we see Honey being introduced on stage as stripper “Hot Honey Harlowe”. Following a rousing performance, she heads to a cafeteria of sorts with her manager. There, Lenny is with his friend Eddie and his wife, and Lenny can’t keep his eyes off her. She notices him and asks her manager who he is. The guy tells her that Lenny is a comic but not a good one, pointing out his lousy jokes and impressions. We cut to Lenny during his act, and he doesn’t get much of a reaction following some jokes and impressions of birds, Jimmy Durante, and Vaughan Monroe. Going back to the interview in the present day, the interviewer asks Honey what she liked about Lenny even though his act was terrible. After giving it some thought, she refers to him as “huggable”. In another flashback, Lenny sees Honey at a night club and comes over to her a couple of times, once to give her a drink and another to light her cigarette. At the end of the night, she agrees to go out with him. Soon after, they are walking and talking, and Lenny talks about how his mother was a comic and he changed his name to Lenny Bruce from Leonard Alfred Schneider because his original name was “too Jewish”. She laughs this off, but she does like the name Bruce. By the time they get to the front desk of the hotel, they both realize they are staying at the same place but in different rooms. Of course, Lenny follows Honey to her room. We cut to Lenny later in life onstage where he gets big laughs for a bit about how saying “Fuck you” to someone isn’t bad because it relates to sex. Going back to the hotel all those years ago, Lenny looks over at Honey in bed and can’t believe he’s with her. He talks about his shyness in a flirty way, and they start fooling around again, knowing Lenny still has to go to work. Cutting back to the present-day interview, Honey laughs and mentions they had “quite a week”. Following a quick cut back to the two in the hotel room where Lenny goes down on her and jokingly says he wants Honey to meet his mother someday, we cut back to the interview.

There, Honey details how they didn’t stay together immediately because she had to go back to Miami to work, but Lenny called every day. One day, he called to say he was coming to Miami because he couldn’t stand being without her. Following another quick cut to a later Lenny getting laughs onstage by bringing up how everyone has had a girl that really screwed with their head. We go back and forth between this set and Honey walking into the room where she stays at in Miami being full of flowers. Right after, Lenny skips through the hallway to knock on her door. In the later stand-up bit, he has a joke about a guy wanting his girl to at least touch his penis because it’s been so long. Then, we go back to the room full of flowers, Lenny opening the door, and a naked Honey inviting him to come join her. Going back to the interview, personal manager and friend Artie Silver (Stanley Beck) says this is when he came into the picture. We flashback to the room with Lenny and Honey, and Lenny talks on the phone with Artie. Artie mentions how Honey is trouble and how she’s already done time at the age of 15. Lenny wonders if his mother Sally (Jan Miner) had anything to do with Artie snooping around, but Artie denies this, even though Sally is sitting across from him in his office. Artie tells Lenny to ask Honey himself, but Lenny defends her and says they’ve already broached these topics. Going forward to the interview, Artie wishes he didn’t get involved in Lenny’s personal life like that, but he did love the guy. Going back to Lenny after the phone call with Artie, Lenny asks Honey to marry him. Switching to the interview, Honey happily recalls the details of their wedding. After a quick jump back to the day where Honey was to meet Lenny’s family, but her and Lenny were taking too long to get out of the car, we cut to the interview where Sally insists that she was cool with whoever Lenny fell in love with. In the car before Honey is to meet Lenny’s family, Lenny assures her to not worry about his mother. He just really wants her to meet Aunt Mema (Rashel Novikoff).

At the lunch, Sally tells a story about the disastrous first time Lenny played a club, filling in as MC for the place Sally played. The lunch goes well, though Lenny can’t help but mess with Aunt Mema, and he jokes about how he met Honey by exposing himself to her, prompting Mema to leave the room in disgust.

Following a quick flashforward of a later Lenny onstage talking about how there is no greater test of someone’s hipness than when your girlfriend becomes your wife, we flashback to Lenny driving with Honey in the passenger’s seat. Jealous, Lenny mentions how he’s tired of Honey being a stripper and how he has an idea for them to be a double act. Flashing forward to the later Lenny’s act again, he does a bit on the hypocrisy of being attracted to a girl who dresses slutty but not wanting them to dress like that when they become your wife. Flashing back to the two in the car, Honey starts thinking of the gigs she will have to cancel, Lenny tells her to forget the idea, and Honey relents and agrees to a do a double act with him, which makes him smile. Flashing forward to the stand-up again, Lenny talks to the crowd about how we want our wives to be a combination of a Sunday School teacher and a $500 a night hooker. Switching to the interview, Honey recalls how their double act led to them being together 24 hours a day. Flashing back to the timeframe when they were a double act, comedian Sherman Hart (Gary Morton) approaches them by a poolside, gives their act credit, says he can use Honey for something, and caresses her leg when he gives Lenny advice to keep his act clean. Hart even tells him that he stopped Jack Goldstein (Guy Rennie) from phoning in a bad report on him. Lenny tries to explain that the off the cuff joke he said about his “jacket off bit” (which sounded like “jacking off”) when he took off his jacket was picked up by the mic accidentally, though it got a big laugh. Even so, Hart calls the situation stupid. Next, we go to their double act, and Hart is in the audience for it. In the middle of it, Lenny spotlights Hart for the crowd, and Hart plugs his show before throwing it back to Lenny.

Lenny apologizes to the crowd for offending them the other night but then says that he’s going to piss on the audience next. Lenny storms out after his set, and Jack Goldstein tells him he’ll never work in show business again as Lenny gets in the car with Honey. Lenny doesn’t care about any of his comments until Jack refers to Honey as his “no-talent wife”. He reverses the car and rolls down the window to tell Jack that there isn’t one Puerto Rican in the kitchen that hasn’t fucked his wife yet before driving off. Flashing forward to the later Lenny onstage, he does a bit on how he’d rather his kid watch a stag film than something like King of Kings because there is no killing or death in a stag film. Flashing back to Lenny driving Honey in the rain, he crashes into a car and Honey is knocked out and badly injured. In the interview, Honey recalls the cuts she got, her bladder being punctured, and how she was in shock for three weeks. Flashing back to the aftermath of the car crash, Lenny goes to the hospital to visit Honey. After a good-looking nurse gives Lenny some coffee, he’s allowed to go in Honey’s room. Though Lenny only has his arm in a sling, Honey is all bandaged up and is administered morphine, with Lenny asking what it is and taking notice of it. Soon after, Lenny is about to leave the building, but he stops and gets the nurse’s number. At the same time, the later Lenny’s bit about guys cheating and pretty much fucking anything given the situation is intercut with this sequence. Soon after, Lenny is with Honey and the nurse, as Honey is wheeled out of the hospital. Once she stands up to exit, the nurse says goodbye to the both of them. Almost immediately after Lenny and Honey walk out of the hospital, Honey accuses Lenny of cheating on her with the nurse. As they talk, it is overlayed with the older Lenny onstage telling men to deny everything if they are accused of cheating. In the interview, Honey talks about how it bugged her at first, but she found out he did this to prove himself. This is still cut together with the older Lenny on stage doubling down on denying things, coming up with any explanation you have, and how women will believe it because they want to believe it.

Honey and the unseen interviewer agree that this was in relation to Lenny being insecure. Regardless, we go back to Lenny walking Honey out of the hospital that day to surprise her with a $7,000 black Cadillac that he paid for with the money they got from the insurance company. They’re both as happy as can be. The next destination will be California. Going back to the interview, Honey talks about their touring of low-level clubs on their way to California. They usually bombed, but they were having fun. Backstage at a club they were playing in Detroit, a drummer offered them heroin for the first time. Honey recalls going a little crazy but chuckles when she remembers Lenny laughing because of how fun it was. After a quick scene where Lenny and Honey sit outside at night and Lenny says her tits will be in cement at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre one day, we go back to the interview with Honey detailing how they moved into their home. She smiles thinking about at first but then remembers the dark times, especially after the interviewer pries a bit. Honey notes the double act not doing well and the two going through their savings, which prompted Lenny to take a bunch of odd jobs and her going back to stripping. They started getting in with a certain crowd of musicians and show business people, and the drugs started flowing, putting the two in some wild hangouts and parties. We flashback to when Lenny convinces Honey to have a threesome with him and another woman. Afterwards, Lenny is pissed because she seemed to be into it a little too much and Honey starts to cry because he’s the one who pushed for it in the first place. Lenny starts angrily talking about how he did fuck the nurse AND some other girls, and he calls Honey out for being with some Chinese girl at the club. In-between, we get a moment from one of Lenny’s later bits about lesbians. Going back to their argument, Honey starts crying, so Lenny comes back to her and says he loves her.

Flashing forward to the interview for a moment, the interviewer wonders what she wanted from Lenny since they broke up so many times during this time period. Smiling, she admits she wanted a baby. She thought it would help them and bring them together. Eventually, she did get pregnant, and they both cleaned up for a while. With this, their daughter Kitty was born on Nov 7th, 1955. They were a real family for a short time until Honey had to go back to work and travel a lot, and Lenny started emceeing at strip clubs. Following this, things started to fall apart. Honey doesn’t seem to know why, but we flashback to Lenny feeding his little daughter at a diner and an inebriated Honey showing up late after being dropped off by some guy, lying and saying she couldn’t get a cab. Lenny comes out of the daydream and he’s by himself at a Chinese restaurant. His order is ready. He knows the cashier, and the guy tells him to greet Honey when he sees her. Right away, Lenny tells him he’s divorced. Immediately, the cashier responds by saying, “You better off”.

This toxic on/off relationship between Lenny Bruce and Honey will continue, and it will only get worse once Lenny’s career starts to take off. As Lenny’s personal life deteriorates, his stand-up starts to reflect the viciousness of what he’s been through, and his act starts to become no holds barred. Unfortunately, when he continues to push the envelope and gain more fame because of it, the authorities try to ruin him just as well.

My Thoughts:

Bordering on being a masterpiece, Bob Fosse’s Lenny might be one of the most underrated biopics of all time. Surely, it’s a forgotten one that needs to be in the discussion of the greats. Shot entirely in black-and-white, the filmmaker opts for a non-linear approach to tell the life and story of trailblazing comedian Lenny Bruce and the way the story is told is enthralling. As each event in the comic’s life occurs, it’s brilliantly intercut with Lenny in his prime telling a stand-up bit onstage relating to it, subtly showing the viewer where the material may have been inspired from. With this, the unforgettable picture that is painted to explain his rise and fall is magnificently done. Even if a moviegoer isn’t a fan or isn’t aware of the comedian’s legend, from an artistry standpoint, you will walk away from Lenny realizing this man and this film was something special.

People forget how good Dustin Hoffman was, but there was a time when he couldn’t make a bad movie. He was that good. Though he isn’t nearly as celebrated as his peers, Hoffman was just as good if not better at times than Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, and his good friend Gene Hackman. The versatility and range Hoffman was able to showcase was insane. Lenny is part of the peak Hoffman years that arguably stretched from 1973 to 1988. He received two Academy Awards during this time frame, one for Kramer vs. Kramer and the other for Rain Man. If he didn’t face some of the stiffest competition of all time, he would have had a third for his enigmatic portrayal of Lenny Bruce. Unfortunately, he was up against Al Pacino in The Godfather Part II and Jack Nicholson in Chinatown. They all lost to Art Carney for Harry and Tonto, which is a crock of shit in itself, but I digress. Regardless, Hoffman is outstanding as the mad comic who after he finds his niche in the tough world of stand-up comedy, he goes all-in with it. Utilizing controversial topics, cuss words, or other phrases considered obscene or offensive in the 1950s and 1960s in his comedy, and would surely be considered commonplace today, Lenny Bruce carved out his own place in show business and influenced virtually every comic that followed him because of it. He doesn’t get his due as much anymore, but he paid the price for pushing comedy as much as he did and as far as he did like no one before him. What he went through allowed for acts today to go as far as they want to in their attempt to try to entertain and get laughs. Back in the 50s and 60s, censorship was a huge deal, and Lenny took the hit for everyone while getting very little in return on the way to his early death at the age of 40. Hoffman’s portrayal of the comic covers each time period of his life in an astounding manner. Early on, we see the fun-loving Lenny failing but enjoying his mediocre rise as his relationship to Honey develops. It’s as close to the charismatic Dustin Hoffman as we get, highlighted by his flirtatious aura and smile as wide as the screen.

Even when he fails, he’s liking where things are going. If the audience doesn’t pay attention, it doesn’t matter. For example, in the strip club sequences, he explains to Artie how happy he is to just say whatever he wants with no restrictions, resulting in an early breakthrough in figuring out what he’s good at. This results in him getting bigger, and with more attention and money, the criticism starts to follow.

With this, Hoffman captures the second half of Lenny’s life, the dramatic portion. He’s experiencing success onstage, but he’s dealing with Honey’s troubles that leads to a divorce and her trying to reenter his life on many occasions. His tendency to bring her back into the fold while they dabble in drug use is Oscar-worthy in itself. Late in the film, we get a long shot of a drugged out Lenny hitting the stage in a trench coat and has a complete meltdown, spewing ramblings about transvestite cops and how its entrapment and touches on Vietnam and Catholicism before flipping out how people are threatening club owners to not let him perform, finishing with how he’s not funny to a confused audience for legitimately seven minutes uninterrupted. It’s a pure acting masterclass. In that moment, Hoffman becomes the dejected Lenny Bruce at his lowest point, mumbling jokes and general statements as the anxious crowd doesn’t know how to react. It might be one of the most raw depictions of someone falling apart ever captured. He’s incredible. As great as this part of the movie was though, the third section is when Hoffman dazzles. Dealing with the constant pressure from authorities trying to silence him, he tries to balance being funny onstage and maintaining his status as one of the country’s top comedians while being deeply affected by having to be in and out of the courtroom because of his material. It starts to become heartbreaking watching the promising Lenny unravel from a controversial comedian unafraid to speak on hot-button topics and the hypocrisies we face in life, to a man who begins to use the stage as a tool to turn him into almost a televangelist or messianic figure speaking to the masses about how he has been wronged by society. It gives great insight into his mindset at the time, as he starts to bring transcripts from his trials, reading law books and studying cases in his off time like he’s a lawyer himself, and tears them apart piece by piece.

At this point, people start walking out on him because it’s not funny anymore. He’s not pointing out things that are relatable to the general public. He becomes obsessed with his own self-image and the government making him an example. Hoffman is unhinged during this portion of the movie, and it’s so engrossing that he practically brings you to tears in that final courtroom sequence following the firing of his lawyers and attempts to defend himself and it’s refused. Roger Ebert argued that Lenny doesn’t convince us that Lenny Bruce was an important performer, but this scene by itself says otherwise. Lenny is on his final stand and begs for the non-fans in the courtroom to just listen to him for a moment. That’s all he asks. He just wants them to listen to his act, so they can hear the verbiage he uses in context. Just like with any comedian, a joke or a line taken out of context in a prepared and timed set can sound bad. However, when things are taken into context and the humor and the point is understood with how the comedian wants to convey his point, it’s more than likely going to be a lot tamer than one may give it credit for. Seeing how they got there is just as important as the punchline itself. It’s all a build, just like in a movie. Though censorship is a lot laxer now compared to the time period Lenny Bruce lived in, the court of public opinion today operates in the same way, which is why a lot of comedians still face dangers of unofficial censorship and cancellation. Additionally, an emphasis is also put on the way in which a comedian says things. When given a droll delivery without the timing, a joke or story may sound terrible or even boring. On the other hand, some comedians have the ability to take something unfunny but make it funny with a delivery that brings it life. Before Lenny meets with his two lawyers in the bathroom, a cop talks about how Lenny used the phrase “Fuck you” and adds that he made a gesture with the microphone, indicating that it was a joke about jerking off.

Playing the role of a comedian and artist being forced to defend his work for prudish people who don’t follow his work nor care, Lenny is flipping out because he didn’t mean for the gesture to be about jacking off stating, “He’s doing my act for the court, and he’s bombing!”.

This line is essential to understanding stand-up comedy and how it’s not as cut-and-dry as people make it out to be. There are so many elements that make regular comedians into those considered great. Again, it’s the timing, it’s the setup, it’s the build, it’s the punchline, it’s the way it’s said, it’s the energy, it’s the emphasis and inflexions on certain lines, it’s practicing the set in different clubs and audiences to see what works and what doesn’t, and there’s even more to it than just that. Sadly, people criticize or form their opinions before challenging themselves to consider all of these factors and why a joke was said in the manner it was. For one cop to point out one thing out of context and deliver it in such an aggressive, negative manner, how could that be fair to the comedian? It’s exactly how Lenny says it when he has his outburst. This guy is doing Lenny’s act for everyone in a serious courtroom and deliberately bombing it to make him look bad. It’s all bullshit. It’s like the Salem Witch Trials but for humorists. Comedy is art, and stand-up is a form of it. Though we are allowed to interpret and react to things the way we see fit, only the artist himself knows what the real intentions of every line of his act is. Can you imagine being put on trial anytime you try to make a point or a joke about something? This was the pressure Lenny Bruce faced for the sake of comedy and why he is such an important performer and figure to the entertainment industry in general. When he speaks with his lawyers, the emotional state of Lenny is felt in the pit of the viewer’s stomach because of how well Hoffman expresses his sorrow, as well as his anger for being in such an unfair position. His lawyers advise against Lenny doing his act for the court even though he sees it as his only shot, so he reminds them that they eat the verdict, but he is the one who ultimately has to do the time. Though they argue the lower courts are meaningless and they can appeal just like in the previous trial they had in Chicago, Lenny sinks against the wall in explaining how that took two years and every nickel he had. It hits us like a brick when the previously fearless Lenny says he had to borrow $10 just to get there that day.

Comedy has made his life, but it’s also ruining it at the same time. Even though he was one of the biggest names in stand-up at that time, he was practically broke. The situation he is in is inescapable. Trying to fight it and knowing that he may still have to go to jail just for saying a few choice words is terrifying. For trying to find humor in everyday life and using harsher language in trying to express his points, he’s facing legitimate jail time. It’s just insane to put this into perspective and how this was happening not all that long ago. The desperation as Hoffman’s Lenny pleads in that courtroom sequence is remarkably done. Even if you’re privy to how it all turned out for the comedian, you find yourself sweating in hopes for Lenny to get the chance to do his act. He talks to the judge man-to-man and tries to give him an ultimatum because he’s that sure he can change the judge’s mind on his material, but the judge refuses to hear him out whatsoever, adding that he can’t allow this type of talk to continue. In that moment, you uncover some of the genius of Lenny’s later stand-up. You start to question why we go about things the way we do, especially with the law at the time. You find yourself wondering why this line of thinking was so irrational but also commonplace at that time, but that’s just it. Lenny Bruce’s stand-up was the type of material who was willing to challenge it, and he was demonized by those in power because of it. He tries to defend himself by saying when he’s talking about “tits and ass”, he’s not saying it purely to shock the audience. The point he is trying to make is how they live in a hypocritical society. Instead of trying to see the comic’s side of things and how it does make a great deal of sense, the judge holds him in contempt of court. Finally, he is defeated and gives up his fight because he knows he’s done all he can do and has no back up to speak of. He’s literally fighting these unjust laws by himself and cannot win.

The viewing audience can’t believe the mess he’s found himself in either. It almost seems fantastical because of how unfair it is, but this goes to show you how we take our freedoms today for granted. Sometimes, we don’t know how lucky we have it now, as our voice allows us to speak on any topic we want on any public forum we want. Lenny Bruce was trying to do it before it became a regular part of society and lost his career because of it.

In this courtroom, Lenny reveals he can’t afford to be on trial anymore and requests for the judge to just cut out the middleman and sentence him right then and there. His cabaret card has been taking away too, so he can’t work to pay off the fees. Even that isn’t good enough however, as the judge can’t allow for an immediate sentencing, demands Lenny get suitable counsel the next time he appears before him, AND he wants a psychiatric evaluation of the comedian on top of that. First Amendment be dammed, if this doesn’t incense you to the highest degree and help you understand Lenny Bruce’s contributions to society itself, I don’t know what to tell you. He wasn’t hurting anybody or anything. It was all just words, but these words (that I cannot stress enough would be considered regular comic speak today) were enough to send him right back to jail. With this series of events that led to the implosion of his career, the combination of the jail time and drug use did him in. Sometimes when one’s back is against the wall to this degree and you’re screaming for help from anyone who will listen, you just want it all to end, no matter the cost. That is what happened to Lenny Bruce.

It is true that Lenny Bruce’s comedy is underplayed in favor of his tendency to speak on hot topics and political issues in his later career when things started to fall apart, but it serves the purpose of the story. This isn’t a documentary on his life where the focus was how funny he was and why we should feel bad when he’s silenced. It’s more than that. Plus, I like what Fosse did in just showing snippets of Lenny’s bits interspersed with his disastrous personal life. It’s not needed for Hoffman to do a ten-minute set imitating Lenny because it would take away from the meat of the story and the flow of things. It’s perfectly paced as is. Letting Hoffman run wild in longer sequences when he’s raving like a madman in his later career on stage picking apart the transcripts of all his trials were necessary in showing what he’s turned into. The gleam in his eye is still there, but the smile is gone. In this ever important third act, we see Lenny at his worst and what led to his downfall, which is much more important and interesting to when he’s in his prime and having a good time. We know that part of his life, but it doesn’t need to be focused on, which is why I can’t praise the decisions enough with how the narrative and presentation of it all are handled. Of course, we like seeing Lenny having fun making the band laugh at the strip clubs, but his riveting rant to an unsuspected audience about how we live in a “happy ending culture”, while pointing out the lying ass captions of Jacqueline Onassis being brave and staying after the JFK assassination, you see what starts to separate Lenny from almost any other comedian. His drug-fueled rants and attacks on the bullshit that society is feeding them starts to make him look like a revolutionary or prophet-like rather than your run-of-the-mill comedian that existed during that time. His bit on racial slurs isn’t even humor. At this point, he teetered into the category of preacher. This was the niche he found himself in and out of, and it’s what gave him his undying legacy. John Santi of Time Magazine tells him, “For a night club comic, you certainly have a great deal of social impact”.

Lenny denies it because he’s just trying to make jokes, but the social impact of his material led to a rise in his popularity and created who he became no matter what he may say in some interview.

The decision to film the movie entirely in black-and-white also tipped the scales from decent docudrama to a tragic, raw, and undeniably gripping Best Picture nominee. The cinematography is nothing short of beautiful. It’s a damn shame Lenny was up against two of the greatest films of all time (The Godfather Part II and Chinatown), The Conversation, and one of the best disaster movies ever in The Towering Inferno. People really didn’t know how good they had it back then. Hell, Bob Fosse would have had my vote for Best Director had Francis Ford Coppola not been on fire that year. It’s shame because today, no one brings up Lenny anymore because of the competition it faced. Make no mistake about it though, I’m here to tell you that this is a fascinating, first-class, must-watch feature of the decade only adding to the lore that was the 1970s in film. That decade truly was untouchable.

For the record, the joke that got Lenny arrested the first time on cock sucking was funny, but the aftermath was just as amusing when the cop was threatening Lenny by saying he would of punched him if he said it in front of his wife or kid, and the somewhat cocky Lenny responding almost immediately with, “I really don’t want to get emotionally involved”. This cool Lenny appreciating the attention he’s getting for getting arrested the first time to what it devolves into by the end is a riveting series of events. Early on, he’s trying to get the judge, that is already willing to find him guilty right then and there, to say the word he’s not allowed to say (“What word?”) before having a performance where he utilizes the phrase “Blah Blah” in place of cock sucking and kills it. Later, we see him ranting about how he doesn’t want to talk about tits and ass and that it’s considered obscene unless it were to be in a newspaper as a dead body. Exposing this reality despite sounding insane in the moment leads to yet another arrest to which he simply responds, “What? AGAIN?!”.

Stressful is an understatement when describing this movie.

As amazing as Hoffman was, Valerie Perrine was mesmerizing in her role and earned her nomination just as well. Playing his “Shiksa goddess”, Honey Bruce’s downfall is just as unnerving to watch, especially with how her contributions to Lenny‘s downfall is portrayed. Even so, she’s a great choice for the story to center around with her interview sequences. Perrine is authentic as it comes too. If you didn’t know Honey Bruce, you’d think this was legitimately her captured on film. That moment when she wonders why Lenny took their kid away from her, and the tape runs out, so they ask her to repeat it was such a great scene. Once she says it out loud and is given a second to reflect on why it happened, she declines to repeat the statement and acknowledges with a nod that Lenny took Kitty away because of her drug use. Her self-destruction is done just as well as Lenny’s and seeing Lenny’s heartbreak for the mother of his child is so well done, like when he gets the collect call from Honey in prison and she asks what he wants, so he has to remind her that she called him. Her relapse after prison that leads to Lenny relapsing was another phenomenal sequence (that was elevated by the black-and-white aesthetic without a doubt), as well as the intoxicated couple mumble character-defining comments like her laughing at Sarah’s screaming and saying, “Okay, I’ll kill myself”, or the high as hell Lenny telling himself in the mirror, “Come on Lenny you got to get up. I know you can do it man”. Then, right before the most publicized bombing of his career, he looks at the mirror and states, “I’m proud of you”.

Bob Fosse’s Lenny is a bewitching reconstruction of the brief but eventful life of Lenny Bruce. Battling the government and his own self-destruction in the name of comedy, audiences will come to realize how influential Lenny Bruce was to the stand-up medium and censorship in general. It may be a stretch to refer to him as the Aristophanes of his time, but he was the one who found out how to weaponize words, whether he meant to or not, in trying to satirize the public. Though he went down in flames because of the same humor that got him his fame in the first place, his importance to the entertainment industry will live forever, and we have this stylized biopic to thank for it. Dustin Hoffman commands the stage just like the comedian used to in one of the most underrated performances of his career. It’s a production that is thought-provoking, emotional, and flat-out transfixing. By the time Lenny is over, you not only empathize with what the star went through, you’ll actually miss him.