Taking Robin Williams seriously

Despite its title, Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind is a straightforward, conventionally assembled documentary biography of an eccentric, decidedly idiosyncratic comedian and actor. At times, that’s a limitation, but overall it’s a good thing. Simply watching Williams in action is probably more interesting than any concerted effort to get inside his head or dissect or approximate his method.

And the nearly two-hour Come Inside My Mind, directed by Marina Zenovich (Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired) which premièred Monday night on HBO, delivers the archival goods: copious clips from Williams’ standup performances, movies, interviews, his 1988 turn in Waiting for Godot at Lincoln Center and the seminal Mork and Mindy, debuting on television in 1978. There are ups and downs, but we get to see the irrepressible, unpredictable, inventive Williams on top of his game often enough that the documentary flies by.

Zenovich proceeds chronologically through Williams’ life, from his cosseted upbringing in the Midwest and Marin County through Juilliard, early difficult days as a standup comic, his big break of Mork and Mindy and the multi-pronged stardom that ensued. His struggles — with addiction and depression, with family life, with handling success — are addressed candidly and poignantly, but the offstage Williams never comes completely into focus. This seems to reflect the experience of the people in his life, and to belie the film’s title — Pam Dawber, his Mork and Mindy co-star, and Valerie Velardi, his first wife, speak in wistful terms of a man who didn’t always welcome others inside his mind.

The film, whose all-star cast of interviewees also includes Billy Crystal, David Letterman and Steve Martin, is better on Williams the live comedian than on Williams the screen actor. It’s hard to argue, from a biographical standpoint, with the attention given to career-making but mediocre films like Good Morning, Vietnam, Dead Poets Society and Awakenings. But a deeper consideration would have found equal time for his best, most poetic work, in smaller films like Cadillac Man, The Best of Times, Moscow on the Hudson and The Fisher King.

Williams’ suicide in 2014 hangs over his story, and Come Inside My Mind can’t help adopting, to some extent, a seemingly unavoidable dialectic between melancholy and manic energy. But Zenovich manages seriousness without sentimentality or mawkishness. She doesn’t solve any mysteries, but she leaves you feeling that you know Williams about as well as he would let you.

Robin Williams