Kevin Pollack’s feature movie directorial debut, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this year, is a documentary exploring the comedy underbelly.

Over 50 worldwide comedy legends are ultimately asked whether to be funny one needs to be miserable and whether there is any truth in the fact that comedy often comes from a place of pain. First, there are 90 minutes of face to camera interviews with the likes of Tom Hanks, Matthew Perry, Jon Favreau, Whoopi Goldberg, Lisa Kudrow, Steve Coogan, Jimmy Fallon bluntly and openly exploring every aspect of their career, and pivotal topics like life, death, money, childhood and what drives them to choose a career dedicated to making people laugh.

Connecting with the audience and an inner desire to be seen and take centre stage are just some of the common threads shared by the comedy royalty of our times. Pollack explores the psyche and digs very deep, at times almost too deep.

Misery Loves Comedy is a very insightful documentary aiming to make you understand the behind the scenes of the art of humour and it certainly does achieves that. It shows our comedy heroes in a completely different light, which at times I couldn’t help but feel they were a bit overexposed.

Darker rather than lighter, Misery Loves Comedy does have some funny moments in it, but if you are planning on watching it to have a laugh, be warned, as that is not its aim. It can be brutally honest and at times even painful, not to mention way too long.

The non-fiction film, dedicated to Robin Williams, is out in UK cinemas from today.

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