Critic Reviews

Little Richard: I Am Everything, directed with supreme love and insight by Lisa Cortés, is the enthralling documentary that Little Richard deserves.

Little Richard: I Am Everything manages to find the proper balance between grace and respect towards Richard’s legacy and valid criticism of his more unsavory views or ill-conceived exploits.

A long-overdue creation corrective that gives an outwardly revolutionary cultural icon his trailblazing due at the same time it grapples with the conflicted soul that rarely knew a lasting inner peace.

By the end of this extremely entertaining and informative documentary, the one thing you will come away with is that Little Richard always presented himself the way he wanted us to see him. And, yes, he was indeed as influential as he always said he was.

Lisa Cortés uses the Big Bang as a visual motif throughout, with stars and galaxies exploding, hurtling out into the darkness. It is an apt analogy.

While the subject of her film used his flamboyant nature, church-rooted vocals, and percussive piano to invent something completely fresh, Cortés has stuck to the tried and true.

Cortés’s devotion to creating a film in honor and respect of Little Richard is also one of achievement and understanding for those who have been marginalized for being who they are.

Elegantly shifting her lens between Little Richard’s biography and the history of the music that sprung forth from him, Cortés traces a nearly impossible trajectory without losing a grounded sense of context.

Little Richard was everything, and thanks to Lisa Cortés’ film his influence on everyone from Elvis Presley and Jimi Hendrix to Bad Brains and Harry Styles can never again be doubted.

The welter of meticulously researched, perfectly chosen interview material cements Richard’s status as chat show gold – he initiated the term ‘Shut up!’ and could have probably made ‘fetch’ happen too – an endlessly engaging raconteur.