In ‘André Is an Idiot,’ comedian-adman André Ricciardi turns terminal cancer into a darkly funny, deeply human cautionary tale about waiting too long for a colonoscopy.
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
“André Is an Idiot” is a cautionary tale about something awful that happens to a middle-aged man—a husband, father and San Francisco advertising executive—who waits too long to get his first colonoscopy. When he does, the verdict is that he has “fourth stage” colon cancer that has already metastasized to his liver. Because the often notably hirsute André Ricciardi is a bit of a kook, with a kooky street-persona look to back it up and a comic, his response to this news is to follow his lifelong tendency to find the humor in it. So, this nodule-sized tumor walks into a bar …
Well, not quite. Directed by Richard Benna, the film won both the Audience Award at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and the Editing Award. Shot in documentary style with André, his wife Janice, their daughters Tallula and Delilah, and André’s friend Lee Einhorn addressing each other and the camera. André’s father is too reserved to appear on camera, so they hire lookalike Tommy Chong to “play him.” As it turns out, André likes weed as much, if not more than, Chong and his comedy partner Cheech Marin. Most often, we get André doing what Lee describes as “finding the comedy in everything.” André begins with an anecdote about masturbating as a 13-year-old in his grandparents’ bathroom and getting wood splinters in his penis (Pinocchio joke, anyone?). In short order, we learn that he has a pair of Kim Kardashian’s pants and plans to harvest her DNA and clone her. Is he projecting?
Even more unlikely, we hear how he met his (really wonderful) wife, Janice. She was a bartender at his favorite hang, an emigre from Ireland, and she needed her green card. She asked André’s friend to marry her. His friend refused, and André stepped in. It was supposed to be business only. André even invited his girlfriend to the wedding. But André and Janice fell in love, or as André put it, “I fucked my wife.” It turns out that Janice is the best thing that ever happens to André (and perhaps the film).
We hear how they cheated on “The Newlywed Game.” One of his daughters says she has always called her father “André.” She does not know why. Once when she was in the hospital, he dutifully read to her the book “Helter Skelter,” which is about the Manson family murders.
Like I said, kook. It is in our nature as film lovers to yearn for (and expect) happy endings. But documentaries are real life as opposed to fiction, right? We must steel ourselves for a long, hard third act. We are reminded that Katie Couric got a colonoscopy “on television” in 2000, saving who knows how many lives by her example (not idiotic André, mind you). André goes down a wormhole that he calls, “How I Got Cancer.” Where do we begin? Cigarettes? Salami? Drugs? Alcohol? Running deliriously through billowing clouds of DDT spray as a kid. Hey, I did that.
André goes on a colorectal “spa day” with his friend Lee, and they get colonoscopies together. We are reminded that, however awful Andre’s illness is, he has money, insurance and support. Janice observes that “cancer André” is really nice. He is also “stoic” and trying to find the comedy even as the medical exams reveal more bad news, and the chemo causes his hair to fall out, although not completely, because André has hair to spare. In some scenes, André sports an Old Testament hermit’s beard. In others, he is less wildly coiffed. Will Andre be able to maintain his irreverent stance? Or will the cancer take that from him as well? André and Lee go into the mountains with what might be called a “shouting coach” (ah, San Francisco) and yell at birds. André collects photo albums and color-coordinates his books.
Cryogenics? André has read of a doctor in Italy who claims he can transplant human heads onto new bodies. Speaking of Mary Shelley, that sounds terrifying. André’s doctor refers to the “innumerable” tumors in his liver. Would André like to be cremated? Only if on a pyre. Otherwise, being launched into orbit sounds like fun. Viewers should be warned that André looks terrible—cadaverous—in his final scenes, although he is thankfully no less funny. Still, for those of us who have grown to like him and his company, it is disturbing. How does he keep going?
“André Is an Idiot” does not have the heft or depth of two of the greatest literary works about death and grief, Joan Didion’s “The Year of Magical Thinking” and Leo Tolstoy’s “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.” But “André” is a moving, empathic story of one funny man’s struggle to remain among the living. Incorporating some existing footage, director Benna does a fine job of humanizing André and the people in his circle. Despite death paying him a premature visit, André has led an exciting and enviable life. But we reach the point when Janice “cannot play cheerleader anymore.” Even at the bitter end with proverbial Death at the door, “André Is an Idiot” remains full of joie de vivre. André would laugh at that juxtaposition if he weren’t dead. Alas, poor André.
‘André Is an Idiot’
Rating: Not rated, sexual language, profanity, drug use, brief nudity
Cast: André Ricciardi, Janice Ricciardi, Tommy Chong
Director: Tony Benna
Running time: 89 minutes
Where to watch: Coolidge Corner Theater
Grade: A-
Boston Movie News 