Even if the word doesn’t register, you might recognize a Dernsie when you see one on screen. As described in this lively account of Bruce Dern’s life and acting career, it’s his “added dialogue or added behavior that is not in the written dialogue.” It’s a glare or a smirk or a line like the one Quentin Tarantino, one of this documentary’s more frequent talking heads, points to. In Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, when Brad Pitt wakes Dern, as a napping ranch owner, and tells the barely alert man that his name is Cliff Booth, Dern’s befuddled, funny response, “John Wilkes Booth?” was an improvised Dernsie.
The director, Mike Mendez, best known for horror films including Big Ass Spider!, based the film on recent interviews with Dern done over several years. There are also interviews with his daughter, Laura Dern, and colleagues including Alexander Payne and Walton Goggins. But mostly the camera is close on his face as we listen to an old man with wiry grey hair and a distinctive gravelly voice — Dern is now 89 — tell stories. Fortunately, he is a terrific storyteller, as blunt as you might expect but wittier and warmer. In the way of such documentaries, the film’s tone is adoring, but Dern’s no-nonsense attitude cuts through most of the treacle.
