Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop is a cathartic and intriguing documentary with occasional laugh-out-loud moments. Before I get into the film itself, a little back story is in order...
In early 2010 TV personality and funny-man Conan O’Brian was given a large monetary settlement to leave The Tonight Show to let the dastardly Jay Leno take the show back in one of the most awkward and uncomfortably publicized TV “conflicts” I have ever seen or cared enough to pay attention to. As a part of the settlement Conan agreed to not appear on television until September 2010. This documentary helps fill in the gap from Conan’s last appearance on NBC’s The Tonight Show to his first appearance on TBS’s Conan. It is a behind-the-scenes documentary that shows the creative process of developing Conan's “Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on TV Tour” and follows the tour itself. I had some fears that the documentary would be a pity-party PR stunt. My fears were allayed about five minutes into the film.
The film has no real narration and very few direct questions are posed by the filmmakers, which gives me the feeling of being a fly on the wall in rooms that people like me are not normally meant to go. The high level of honesty that comes across in this documentary is what makes it work. Conan goes through a catharsis and cameras are there to capture his gory rollercoaster of emotion. He seems to have an overwhelming compulsion to be “on” all the time. He says it himself in the documentary: "I'm like tinker-bell, without applause, I die." He never seems fully happy unless he is entertaining someone. One of the ways that Conan entertained television audiences was by being fairly self-deprecating on a night to night basis and that behavior does not go away in this documentary or on this tour. If anything, it branches out in the form of Conan treating the people around him like poop as well. Watching Conan be so talented, tired, irritable, irritating, angry, funny, mean, and driven all at the same time is truly mesmerizing. Conan is real. Conan is human. Conan has issues.
I am not convinced that you need to be a Conan fan to appreciate and enjoy Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop, but it wouldn’t hurt.
