BRIGHT LIGHTS: STARRING CARRIE FISHER AND DEBBIE REYNOLDS Special Screenings

In real life, Carrie Fisher lives next door to her mother, Debbie Reynolds — or, rather, you could say that Princess Leia lives next to Tammy. The tenuous dialectic between individual, character and icon is negotiated onscreen in BRIGHT LIGHTS: STARRING CARRIE FISHER AND DEBBIE REYNOLDS by two performers often described as “larger than life,” but it’s a life circumscribed by Hollywood’s expectations, and internalized by Fisher and Reynolds. Directors Fisher Stevens and Alexis Bloom take a Maysles-style documentary approach in their exploration of a mother and daughter’s emotionally charged relationship. Carrie Fisher is a wise, open and extraordinarily articulate subject, which will come as no surprise to fans of her writing. With extraordinary access to archival footage and the memorabilia-filled spaces their subjects inhabit, the filmmakers pack the screen with sparkle and tears. — Gillian Horvat