Tig (2015)

Movie Info

Tig climbs every mountain!!!

Tig Notaro is halving a rough year.  She comes down with Clostridium difficile colitis (aka C. diff.) which put her in the hospital and nearly killed her.  Her mother tripped and in a freak accident she died from her accident.  She went through a break-up.  If this wasn’t bad enough, the night before a stand-up show, Tig found she had cancer…and it changed her life.  Instead of backing down Tig gave what some call one of the best stand-up performances of all time…but what do you do after that?  Tig finds herself in a precarious position of battling a disease, seeking love, and a last chance effort to have a child all while redefining herself as a comic.

Directed by Kristina Goolsby and Ashley York, Tig is a documentary following Tig Notaro.  The film premiered on Netflix on June 6, 2015.

Conan…I have to take this call!

I found Tig Notaro on This American Life with her Taylor Dayne story.  I am not a stand-up comedy fan but something about Tig’s delivery is far more humorous to me than the average comedian.  She is uncomfortable, out of place, and at the same time loving it and loving playing with the format…it isn’t necessarily what she says, but how she says it.

I didn’t know what to expect heading into this documentary other than it was about Tig Notaro.  I didn’t know if it was about her life, her stand-up, or her cancer…it turns out it was a little of everything…plus, it had real emotion at points.

The movie starts out showing Tig’s rise as a comic.  She was doing decent to strong and the idea to tap into her pain as part of her routine is shown to be a difficult decision.  The more interesting aspect of this concept is the idea of how do you follow-up the decision to put your life on stage…it isn’t a routine that you can repeat, but people still expect genius from you.  I like that the movie explores that idea of what is essentially stage fright since she doesn’t have a plan for a follow-up.

They keep saying you “get one shot” and all I can think of is Eminem

The second big aspect of the movie is Tig’s plans for a child.  The struggle seems very real in the documentary and you are getting the news as she does.  It is rough and you feel the deflating moment like her.  It also provides an odd conundrum.  You realize she’s risking her life to have this child, but you also question why she can’t make a child who needs a family happy (which ends up being the end decision).

If you like Tig Notaro, you will like Tig.  It is interesting to see her in her element and see how she takes all the blows that life was dealing her.  It is nice because if she can keep optimistic, it is possible for anyone to keep optimistic.  Tig shows you if life deals you a bad hand, you can’t just trade out, but you have to really learn to work with what you have…and it is real lesson opposed to the optimistic lessons of regular movies.