Review: "Being Elmo" is a Wonderfully Honest and Open-Hearted Documentary

As someone who grew up watching cartoons and playing with action figures, I never had much interest in TV shows like Sesame Street or The Muppet Show. I thought that they were for babies and didn’t have anything to offer me. Yet in my adulthood, I find that whenever I am exposed to the Muppets in any form, I become completely engrossed and wrapped up in the magic that goes into their creation. Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey is just as much about Elmo’s immensely talented puppeteer, Kevin Clash, as it is a testimonial of the ineffable charm of the Muppets. The documentary offers both a literally rags-to-riches story and a compelling reason for the Jim Henson legacy to continue.

            The film begins with Clash’s childhood as he grows up in Dundalk, an area just outside the city of Baltimore. We are introduced by Clash to the modest house in which he grew up with his large family in the 70s. He talks about being glued to the TV whenever anything involving Muppets came on, and how he attempted to create characters of his own using cloth, foam, and not-so-subtle stitching.

Although Clash is heavily involved in the narration and commentary on the film, there is no sense of his ego intruding on the story. He is merely there to present the facts of his life, which, on their own, are more than enough to suck viewers in. As a viewer, you get a real sense of the depths of warmth to Clash’s personality that could allow for the genesis of Sesame Street’s perhaps most enduring and popular character, Elmo.

The doc clips along at a breezy pace, making sure always to preserve the optimism of the shows for which Clash is responsible. So when you reach the point at which Clash turns down Henson’s offer to work on his film, The Dark Crystal, you feel the tension of the situation without sacrificing the cheery momentum of the rest of the movie. Despite the fact that Clash has been involved with the Muppets in some way for more than half his life (he’s almost 52 now), you can tell that his wonder at the power of what he does has never flagged.

Unlike a lot of showbiz documentaries, Being Elmo is almost an entirely unmitigated success story. Even though Clash came from considerably humble beginnings—he could barely afford to buy the thread to make his puppets—you can see the shining light at the end of the tunnel from miles away. A justifiable criticism of the documentary may be that it glosses over some of the negative aspects of Clash’s career: he hints that he has gone through a divorce, and there are references in the last third of the film to his absence as a father to his daughter, Shannon. It would have been interesting if the film delved into how his child would have reacted to Clash’s decision to entertain other children instead of her.

The brevity of the movie (a spry 76 minutes) and its subject matter suggest that it was meant to be shown to young audiences, but the filmmakers do not pander to the lowest common denominator. The director, Constance Marks, earned my considerable emotional response to the film honestly, without pushing any of my buttons or becoming too saccharine. Marks manages to strike an impressive balance between sentiment and objectivity, making Being Elmo one of the best documentaries I have seen in years.