How Maria Bamford makes personal material public
Paralyzed by Hope traces comedian Maria Bamford’s route from growing up in Duluth, Minnesota, to working as a performer in Los Angeles. Her stand-up and the events and relationships that inform it give the film two connected subjects.
Co-directors Judd Apatow and Neil Berkeley follow Bamford in the present over nearly four years. Stand-up excerpts and interviews with other comedians sit alongside that more recent material, giving a viewer a way to trace the relationship between her public work and private experience.