Are We Good? (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

PopEntertainment
Oct 2
3 min read

Updated: Oct 7

ARE WE GOOD? (2025)

Featuring Marc Maron, Nate Bargatze, W. Kamau Bell, Bill Burr, David Cross, Gary Gulman, Sarah Rose Hyland, Rick Ingraham, Laurie Kilmartin, Jessica Kirson, Denis Leary, Sam Lipsyte, Brendan McDonald, John Mulaney, Esther Povitsky, Caroline Rhea, Michaela Watkins and archival footage of Lynn Shelton, Jeffrey Ross & Conan O’Brien.

Directed by Steven Feinartz.

Distributed by Utopia. 97 minutes. Not Rated.

Marc Maron is known (for right or for wrong) for many things – his cantankerousness, his neuroses, his slight bitterness, his insecurity, his self-absorption, his self-righteousness. When you find out that there is going to be a documentary on the famous and famously complicated stand-up comedian, actor and podcaster, you don’t expect that it will be an hour-and-a-half meditation focusing mostly on love and mourning.

Well, good for Maron and director Steven Feinartz for proving our expectations wrong.

In fact, Are We Good? goes a long way towards humanizing the self-acknowledged curmudgeon. It also shows Maron to be a huge cat lover. Who knew?

Marc Maron has always been the guy who finds humor in panic. In Are We Good?, director Steven Feinartz doesn’t just document Maron’s life – he mines it. What begins as a standard bio quickly morphs into something far more intimate: a raw, unfiltered portrait of a man grappling with loss, legacy, and the lingering ghosts of vinyl records and broken relationships.

Feinartz, who previously helmed Maron’s From Bleak to Dark, knows his subject well. He doesn’t try to polish Maron’s edges – he lets them poke at the screen. The film opens with Maron muttering about heart attacks and breakfast choices, and somehow, it’s both hilarious and heartbreaking. That’s the Maron paradox: a man who can make you laugh while he’s falling apart.

The emotional core of the documentary is the death of Lynn Shelton, Maron’s partner and creative muse. Her sudden passing in 2020 casts a long shadow over the film, and Maron doesn’t shy away from it. He confronts grief the way he confronts hecklers – with brutal honesty and a touch of self-loathing. Watching him sift through Shelton’s belongings or choking up mid-set when a joke veers too close to memory, is like watching someone try to heel a wound with cynicism.

Feinartz intersperses Maron’s stand-up with interviews from comedy’s elite – John Mulaney, David Cross, W. Kamau Bell, and more – who paint a picture of a man both maddening and magnetic. They talk about Maron’s neuroses like war stories, each anecdote a testament to his authenticity. Caroline Rhea jokes that real comedians never retire, and Maron’s “This May Be the Last Time” tour art flashes on screen like a dare.

Visually, the film is scrappy, sometimes dimly lit, and occasionally stitched with animation that feels more like a detour than a destination. But that’s part of its charm. It mirrors Maron himself: imperfect, jagged, and deeply human.

Are We Good? isn’t just a documentary – it’s a therapy session with a mic. It’s about grief, yes, but also about survival. About finding humor in heartbreak and meaning in the mundane. It’s Maron at his most vulnerable, and therefore, his most compelling.

If you’ve ever found solace in a WTF episode or laughed through tears at one of Maron’s rants, this film is for you. Maybe life is not good, but Maron’s trying to be. And that’s something.

Jay S. Jacobs