Finding Vivian Maier is an interesting documentary about a nanny who was secretly a prolific and talented photographer, whose work was discovered posthumously by an earnest and sensitive young man (John Maloof) who sets about bringing her work to the attention of the world. I mainly liked it because of her photography itself; they show a lot of her pictures (I wish they had shown even more) and they are beautiful pieces of art, almost to the last, endlessly mesmerizing to look at. The film is worth seeing just to experience the art of this strange and remarkable individual.

A lot of people who knew Vivian talk about her in the movie. But none of them knew her well, and what they have to say about her basically amounts to “she was a weirdo”. This is fine as far as it goes, but there was clearly more to say about the personality of this artist, and on the topic of deviation from the norm (which she personified in the extreme) and its importance to society. A brief comparison to a somewhat similar (but vastly superior) documentary like My Architect quickly reveals the shortcomings of Finding Vivian Maier. Your appreciation of Vivian is in the end rather superficial, limited to the simplistic notion that she had some kind of “mental disorder” that kept her from becoming famous. They do feature one artist-dude who is interviewed at length, but his remarks are mainly aimed at convincing the audience that she was a good photographer, something that is perfectly obvious from the very first photos shown in the documentary.

I left the theater aware that Vivian was a fascinating artist and character, but I also left aware that the documentary didn’t give me a whole hell of a lot in the way of substantive ideas on either her art or her character. Perhaps it was doomed to this by her secretiveness throughout her life, but I think the film was also consciously superficial. Dramatic tension is not established or held particularly well (in fact, the entire opening of the film seems a bit amateurish), and one sticks with the somewhat interesting but definitely repetitive interviews mainly in the hopes of seeing more of her pictures.

I would recommend Finding Vivian Maier, certainly. I just wish their exploration of her had been a bit more sophisticated and soulful.