Everybody's Everything
EVERYBODY’S EVERYTHING - © 2019 A Beamer Boy Production
Posthumous documentaries on artists, musicians, actors and celebrities alike are always compacted and addressed in a standard, generic and conventional delivery. It is simply a by-the-book account of a life story that attempts a celebration of life only for an audience to pine for the final moments with a sadistic pour of delight.
In such a genre, it is arguably easier to step out the social norm and create something more impacting by not following staple conventions. An artist such as Lil Peep evokes such a sense of artistic mysticism and mash-up, revolt runs through his music and changes his image that defied expectation. It is a shame that this documentary, Everybody's Everything, directed by duo Sebastian Jones and Ramez Silyan about the limited time Lil Peep had on this earth, is a squandered and derivative missed opportunity.
The most substantial aspect is the footage present. Much adoration must go to the age of social media; without it, Everybody's Everything struggles even to convey and define the simplest of personality traits of who its titular subject was and is. Thankfully, the subject had a strong online persona and through backstage footage, personal and private memories collected by his family as well as off-the-cuff moments in ordinary life, he’s given a lifeline of a narrative. Without such footage, this documentary rests solely on interviews that do nothing to incite moments of character or immersion into Peep’s short-lived story.
Perhaps it is too early to stoke the fires of this artist’s legacy. Documentary and musical compilations released posthumously in such a short time would suggest otherwise, with numerous people out there still wanting to earn their respective cut.
Everybody's Everything is not bad, per se, just ordinarily dull. The family dynamic is the film’s underlying narrative key and it works emotionally and engagement wise. For an audience to fully ingest what Peep had around him, forming his trajectory. Specifically, with Peep's special relationship with his grandfather and his distant relationship with his father that ultimately made him the man he was. That being said, the character of Lil Peep is in full force but the person that is Gus is never entirely freed to be an integral aspect of the feature here, with little time and effort spent to uncover him.
All in all, Everybody's Everything does little to educate, engage or even discuss the trials and tribulations of Lil Peep. The homegrown grassroots aesthetic is appreciated but it always should be acknowledged in what way the titular subject would have thought of such an entity, and with what's present it would not be hard to suggest an overall mixed feeling.
