Director: Joe List
Stars: Tom Dustin, Joe List
Synopsis: Follows comedian Tom Dustin in Key West, featuring stand-up performances and his friendship with Joe List, while exploring depression and alcohol through comedy and storytelling.
It’s always interesting when someone makes a documentary about their friends. The perspective is unique, fresh, but also biased. There’s that sense of understanding and empathy that is unmistakably bittersweet. This was the first thought that came to my mind while watching the famous comedian Joe List’s documentary debut, Tom Dustin: Portrait of a Comedian, about his best friend and fellow comedian, Tom Dustin.
List perfectly changes the chronological order between decades, showing us Dustin at his youngest, most energized self, followed immediately by a recent clip where time and missed opportunities have humbled him. List loves his friend. That’s one thing the viewer can tell just by following how he frames Dustin, even at his lowest, through a nurturing, kind lens. One can’t help but fall for Dustin, even as it seems like he’s not the wild hotshot he was in the past (and how his knack for comedy, even at his youngest and most creative, never led him to a success similar to List’s).
There’s not a hint of pity or deprecation in the way he portrays his friend’s mishaps and regrets. It’s all done through an understanding of a man who shares his best friend’s passion, but doesn’t let it consume him. List provides us with a glimpse into the behind-the-scenes of Comedy Central. In one scene, a regular bystander talks to Dustin and calls comedians “Some of the bravest people on the planet.” But List unveils the façade of the fantasy of living life as a stand-up comedian. A life without rules, where drugs and alcohol course through the veins of those brave men, turning them into after-night special heroes, stripping bare what lies behind the glamour of this hedonistic, rebellious existence that goes beyond what society requires. List portrays himself and Dustin as two dudes on the fringe of society with the hopes of making it big, he doesn’t glamorize or sugarcoat the life of comedians, so that dream of living off jokes doesn’t seem as fantasy-like as most people envision it to be.
This documentary wouldn’t have worked if it was only a portrait of Dustin, despite how enriching and endearing his journey as a stand-up comedian is. The back and forth between List and Dustin brings a lot to the table, but their story in its extreme personal status has an underlying universality that feels familiar with a lot of people. List and Dustin can be any of us, friends at different stages of life, with varying degrees of success and self-actualization, and yet, the bond between them is what keeps them together stronger than ever.
I couldn’t help but wonder while watching this documentary: what makes or breaks a talent? It poses the important question of showing, through a carefully crafted storyline, the change of tone and character of an artist who does not rise and fall from grace, but remains stable in a middle ground where no major change truly occurs, yet no significant tragedy befalls him. It’s refreshing to see Dustin engaging in his shenanigans, supported by his friend, while also realizing that a stress-free approach to a bumpy artistic journey is the best way to be.
Tom Dustin: Portrait of a Comedian is a great picture to watch if someone wants a peek inside the lives of two men burdened and broken by life but still kicking and cracking a joke or two about the pain. It may seem like a vanity project of two cool guys who were once even cooler kids, but it’s more of a love letter not just from a friend to his less lucky pal, but to the comedy scene at Comedy Key West.
