Sundance Film Festival
MOVIE REVIEW
André is an Idiot (2025)
No one in "André is an Idiot" actually quotes the eminent philosopher James T. Kirk and says that how we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life; but the ethos of Tony Benna's documentary speaks for itself. Fictional and factual art about facing terminal medical diagnoses and imminent reunion with the cosmos isn't exactly thin on the ground, although the universal sympathies of any nonpsychopathic viewer are pulled out freshly painful every time. The success of the art as art comes down to the nature of the person in the frame. In this case that's extrovert ad executive and loving, if mildly madcap, family man André Ricciardi, whose delay in getting a colonoscopy when warning signs appeared at the age of 52 leads to the discovery of a huge Stage IV colorectal cancer tumor, one that had been lining up his destiny for a while.