Goin' to the Show With a Regular Guy*

FINDING VIVIAN MAIER (A-minus) - We make no secret of our love of documentaries about regular folk. Add this fascinating character study to the list.

Vivian Maier was a nanny, mostly in Chicago, for decades. But she also was a compulsive photographer and videographer. No one had any idea of how talented and prolific she was until a few years ago.

This unfolds like a fine whodunit, as we slowly fill in puzzle pieces of the stern lady with the sorrowful eyes, glimpsed in decades-old selfies and other fleeting images.

John Maloof, a real estate agent researching the history of a neighborhood in Chicago, stumbled across a box of Maier's photos. Smitten, he sought out the rest of her stash, tracking down estate sales and the woman's stuffed storage unit, which also included undeveloped rolls of film. Right about the time Maloof figured out what he had, he found Maier's recent obit online.

Maloof here teams up with L.A. TV producer Charlie Siskel to create an expertly paced documentary peeling back the layers of the mysterious Ms. Maier and championing her work. It's really a slick piece of work. And the woman's photographs -- now traveling the world in museum shows -- stand up next to the work of the venerated street shooters. She was particularly drawn to the down-and-out.

The viewers predicament depends on your level of ease with voyeurism. Here's a woman who was painfully private. Evidence of mental illness creeps in as the film unfolds. She obviously could have shopped her photographs around and sought fame and glory, but she chose not to. She didn't ask for this close public examination of her life.

Maloof and Siskel talk to the families she worked for (including single-dad Phil Donahue in the early '70s), and as time goes on, Maier's quirks turn into darker habits that left some traumatic scars. The filmmakers go to France to track down her "roots" (everyone assumed she was French; was she?), as well as evidence that perhaps she did place some of her images in circulation after all. I hesitate to reveal much more; that would ruin the film's main appeal.

Yes, this is invasive. But it's also quite captivating. The sleuthing by these young men comes off more as a posthumous homage than a hit job on an anonymous soul.

I was moved. One could only hope to be the subject of such a random, ordinary obituary. 

BONUS TRACK
Here's the trailer:



* -- With apologies.