Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time

Vonnegut remains such contradictory company. His harrowing observations of inhumanity, most famously in Slaughterhouse-Five’s first-hand descriptions of the bombing of Dresden, seemed to render him ever more goofy.

[Weide's] thoughtful approach largely fits a subject where sadness, cynicism, laughter and optimism jostle fascinatingly together.

It barely tries to assess the literary value of the author’s work, but it captures his good-humoured personality...

Vonnegut says he prefers laughter to crying, and it’s easy to see why... I don’t mean to make Unstuck in Time sound melancholy; it is charming, too.

The real warmth, the way the camera becomes almost incidental in the encounters between documentarian and subject... gives this film its satisfying emotional depth.

In a huge, non-chronological narrative whirl, the film duly celebrates Vonnegut’s work, but it also reveals a man haunted... it’s unlike any other literary documentary and, consequently, essential viewing.

KURT VONNEGUT: UNSTUCK IN TIME, a biography of Kurt Vonnegut, has most of his early life told with home movies. Later the narrative is from photos of his articles, books, first pages of manuscripts, and footage shot by director Robert B. Weide and others.

A film full of intimacy and affection, of insight into the effort it takes to be both an artist and a human being.

[A] touching, if slightly unfocused, account of the fascinating life of Slaughterhouse- Five writer Kurt Vonnegut.

Despite being compiled on and off over decades, this fond, intimate documentary portrait of the influential, celebrity author and social satirist, gains from the lengthy process and is coherent and timely, even if it indulges the filmmaker a smidgin