A somewhat rudimentary bio-doc that isn't especially insightful, but which features excellent archival material

Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind is a fairly rudimentary bio-doc that fails to live up to its subtitle; the Robin Williams presented in the film is no more knowable than Robin Williams the stand-up comedian or Robin Williams the Academy Award-winning actor. The film opens with a clip from his 2001 appearance on Inside the Actors Studio, with host James Lipton asking him about his "mental reflexes", wondering if his mind simply works faster than the rest of us. This prompts Williams to leap to his feet and launch into an improvised tour de force of jokes, puns, wordplay, double entendre, accents, characters, meta-commentary, and sight gags. Getting a standing ovation, he sits back down, but he never actually answers the original question, and Lipton doesn't press him on it. Come Inside My Mind essentially reproduces this exchange – it asks questions about Williams, gives him a platform, marvels at his on-stage energy, but never manages to elicit or elucidate much in the way of genuine psychological insight. What the film most definitely does have going for it, however, is the superbly chosen archival footage, much of it not seen in years, which shows Williams at the absolute height of his powers, exuding an on-stage mania that makes early Jim Carrey seem sedate. And, ultimately, the quality of much of this footage offsets the film's failure to offer anything resembling a deep dive into his thought-processes or private life.

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