Life Itself review: a critical take on a critic’s life

It might be stretching it a little to summon up allusions to Oliver Cromwell’s famous warts (and all). Steve James’s cinematic take on Roger Ebert’s autobiography stands as a warm tribute to America’s most prominent mainstream movie critic.

Life Itself is far from being a hagiography. The film follows a bright blue-collar boy as he falls for the journalist's life, gets appointed as film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times and, alongside arch-rival Gene Siskel, becomes an unlikely TV personality. The archive footage is peppered with moving shots of Ebert, his lower jaw missing after surgery for cancer, living out his last days with devoted wife Chaz.

Along the way, Life Itself – assisted by his own self-criticism – does allow the case against Ebert some time in court. He was a serious boozer and, though a lifelong leftist, he exhibited unreconstructed attitudes towards women that were, in the 1970s, common among even the most radical of campaigners. The perennially incandescent Jonathan Rosenbaum, critic for the more highbrow Chicago Reader, turns up to rail against the "consumer advice" that Siskel and Ebert peddled in place of genuine criticism.

Rosenbaum is right, of course. The boys' "thumbs up" innovation accelerated the advance of the reductive star rating that now accompanies virtually every film review (including this one). But Life Itself makes it clear that Ebert was always determined to flog serious cinema in languages other than English to his TV audience.

Ultimately, it proves impossible not to adore Ebert. Martin Scorsese, the era's greatest talking head, shows up to celebrate his late chum. His disingenuous attempts to say nice things about Ebert's script for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls are hilarious. Towards the end, however, Marty breaks down and finds himself momentarily unable to continue.

It takes a remarkable man to stop Martin Scorsese from talking.