Anybody concerned about Liza Minnelli after her delicate appearance at the Oscars three years ago – friends deny she needed the wheelchair provided – will be reassured by her consistently sharp and witty performance in this hugely enjoyable documentary.
There are some curious omissions. Nothing on her superb early film performances in The Sterile Cuckoo and Charlie Bubbles. No Arrested Development. Nothing on Arthur, for heaven’s sake. If the tight focus on the 1970s can be forgiven, few fans will feel short-changed.
Some of Minnelli’s recollections are curious. Talking heads run through the array of drugs wolfed down at the legendary disco Studio 54: Quaaludes, poppers, cocaine. “Nobody did drugs,” Minnelli then says. “They just didn’t.”
The film-makers do her the service of not immediately cutting to the famous image of a man in the moon sniffing white powder from a spoon that hung above the dancers at the Manhattan nightspot.
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Elsewhere the subject is, for the most part, stirringly frank, not least about the pressures of growing up as the daughter of Judy Garland. Bruce David Klein, an unfussy director, drags out notorious footage of Garland literally pushing Minnelli about the stage in an early performance together. One contributor is frank enough to suggest that, though (or perhaps because) daughter was devoted to mother, Garland’s death in 1969 meant she “didn’t have to worry any more”.
Just three years later, Minnelli broke out from the shadow with her incendiary performance in Cabaret. She has remained a star ever since – even if good roles were sporadic.
The film has sad stories to tell about Minnelli’s marriages, but there is often grim humour in the footage. Announcing the break-up of her engagement to Desi Arnaz jnr, she attempts to buoy the press by declaring that she is now in love with Peter Sellers. One doesn’t need a PhD in celebrity lore to guess how that turned out.
Michael Feinstein, a loyal friend of the subject’s, minces no words about her last husband, David Gest. “You should only speak good of the dead,” he says. “David Gest is dead – good.”
For all that, there is no sense here of Minnelli being a tragic figure. One can easily understand how endless comparisons with her mother weary her. On the evidence of this likable doc, she remains smart, charming and greatly, greatly loved.
Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story is available on digital platforms
