SARA BAREILLES: GOOD GRIEF – Review by Valerie Kalfrin
Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles says she believes music is “of the soul.” Her new documentary, Sara Bareilles: Good Grief, has so much music, heart, creativity, and love that viewers will feel privileged Bareilles has opened her soul to us. I know I did.
The often-self-deprecating performer likely would puncture that with a wry aside or an expletive—plenty of which are on display here. (“You know when you’re caffeinated and for ten minutes, everything is possible?” she says at one point.) In limited release, this roughly ninety-minute film follows about a week of recording sessions for her new album, titled Good Grief, at Dreamland Recording Studios in Hurley, New York. Yet it’s impossible to watch Sara Bareilles: Good Grief without feeling humbled not just by Bareilles’s vocal range and lyrical talents but her willingness to engage with the uncomfortable, painful subject of loss.
“Is there death in every song?” a visiting friend asks, wiping away tears after hearing one. Bareilles and her collaborators laugh, having already shared hugs behind the mikes or mixing console.
A master of infectious pop anthems like Brave, King of Anything, and Love Song, Bareilles (Girls5eva, Waitress: The Musical) also writes lyrics weaving wit and crystalline honesty. Sara Bareilles: Good Grief finds her in the studio for her first album in seven years, composing songs about her struggles with infertility, the death of two friends to cancer, and her mental health. Bareilles lost her close friend and former manager Chad Joseph and another friend, Broadway actor Gavin Creel, in recent years.
Writer-director Josh Alexander, who previously helmed the Rev. Al Sharpton documentary Loudmouth, uses ample closeups, some archive footage supplied by the singer, and occasional one-on-one moments with Bareilles. But mostly, he wisely gets out of the way. Part of the magic here is in how Bareilles and multi-instrumentalists Butterfly Boucher and Rob Moose, indie-pop artist Misty Boyce, drummer Charley Drayton, bassist Solomon Dorsey, and sound engineer Jonathan Low noodle around with percussion, strings, keyboards, and harmonies, finding rhythms to complement her words and initial rough melodies.
It’s invigorating to watch creative people at work, especially with such obvious trust and camaraderie. (Dorsey at one point asks, “Can we roll? Because there are ideas happening, and I’m notorious for forgetting shit.”) The studio, set in a repurposed nineteenth-century church, is a cozy yet vibrant setting, as much for its stained-glass windows and oriental carpets as cinematographer Jenna Rosher’s framing. Production sound mixer Nikola Chapelle also deserves credit for capturing the subtleties around the building. It’s one thing for Bareilles’s collaborators to point out they like the “underwater” sound of an instrument in a particular spot, but Chapelle helps laypeople hear such a comment and understand what that means.
The music is marvelous, from the delicacy of a dulcimer on sweeping tracks like Home to the simple yet shattering piano ballad Forever, with lines like, “If you need me, and we’re not together / Close your eyes to see me better / I’ll be here forever.” (There are some upbeat tracks too, such as Capsize Me, which between the words and arrangement will be my go-to comfort song for a while.)
Yet aside from all that, what makes Sara Bareilles: Good Grief truly special is the confessional moments among her and her colleagues. The lyrics and music resonate so much that between recordings, the group shares thoughts on relationships, aging, parenting and mortality, crafting a safe space to explore how life cracks your heart open and how you muddle through it. Bareilles’s husband, actor Joe Tippett (Monarch: Legacy of Monsters), also drops by, his love and support as plain on his face as how Bareilles sings with her heart on her sleeve.
The emotions here are so raw and relatable—and the tears flow so readily onscreen (and off, in my audience)—that Sara Bareilles: Good Grief feels like a cathartic experience. Intimate and comforting, it encapsulates a hope she sings in one line: “the part of me who shudders can be a lighthouse for others.”
