Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Derek DelGaudio’s In and Of Itself’ on Hulu, the Movie Version of an Emo Illusionist’s Mesmerizing Stage Show

Hulu’s Derek DelGaudio’s In and Of Itself is the filmed, Frank Oz-directed version of an illusionist’s stage show, performed 552 times in Los Angeles and New York City. Actually, I’m not sure “illusionist” is the proper term — “magician” doesn’t seem right, “trickster” is too dismissive, wizard is too grandiose. So I’ll go by his Twitter bio: Unreliable narrator. That helps properly frame what he does in his show, which finds a curious and engrossing shared space, unsteady by design, in the Venn diagram of astonishing card tricks, psychic-reading hucksterism and psychotherapeutic analysis. It’s not something you see every day.

DEREK DELGAUDIO’S IN AND OF ITSELF: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: As attendees file into the theater, they pick a card from a massive grid hanging on the wall. They read, “I AM” with various states of being, ranging from existential descriptors to common professions, beneath the words. These are tickets to the show, and they’re ripped in half — audience members keep the “I AM” part. DelGaudio takes the stage and talks about a man who gained notoriety and some wealth by gambling on Russian roulette in front of live audiences. He adds a bullet to the chamber, and another, and another, raising the stakes. This man, ostensibly, is DelGaudio, “the Roulettista.” There are six “chambers” on the stage behind him, representing the show’s illusions.

DelGaudio wraps his tricks in deeply personal storytelling and metaphorical tales. The point when the sun is at a low angle and you can’t tell a wolf from a dog, for example. Or how he was six years old when his mother told him she was gay, and how they were harassed and terrorized so much that they had to move away. He takes a deck of cards, shuffles them, fans them out, talks about how he learned sleight-of-hand while performing the very same thing, the distraction being the acknowledgment of the thing we’re being distracted from. Ouroboros called; it wants its tail back.

He plucks a brick from one of the chambers, builds a house of cards around it, blows it down, the brick is gone. He talks about perception and identity. It begins with the story of six blind men who feel six different things but fail to agree that all of those things belong to one elephant. He plucks some letters in envelopes from another chamber, then plucks a participant from the audience. They’ll read the letter and its contents will change, and both the reader and the observers will have different perceptions. Profound? Maybe. Then he gets back to the “I AM” cards, which is where the profundity really kicks in.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: In and Of Itself explodes more melons than 20 Gallagher shows! It exists somewhere between David Copperfield, psychic call-in shows and a self-help seminar, maybe like that Brene Brown one on Netflix. Maybe pair it with the Ricky Jay documentary, Deceptive Practice. (Amusingly, Hulu cues up The Amazing Johnathan Documentary immediately following DelGaudio, if you’re up for some good old-fashioned psychological whiplash.)

Performance Worth Watching: Is DelGaudio baring his soul up there, or acting? Well, both can be true, can’t it?

Memorable Dialogue: “Every secret has a weight to it, and you can only carry them for so long,” DelGaudio says, about how he hid the truth about his mother from his friends, fearing retaliation or rejection. And maybe, just maybe, about the hows of his illusions too, because he’s doing a lot of metaphorical sleight-of-hand here, too.

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Have I fully emphasized how convincingly DelGaudio creates an atmosphere of profound openness, where he gives a little and the audience gives back? Attendees cry a bit, he cries a bit, the air seems heavy, even in your living room, watching from a distance, but in a medium that allows for deeper study of the sincerity in DelGaudio’s eyes, how he makes eye contact with many audience members during the show’s big finale. His performance struck me as similar to how an Oscar-winning actor might channel a traumatic memory to imbue a fictional character with sincere emotion. There’s real weight and conviction to it. You may be engrossed by his facial expressions and not with what’s happening elsewhere on stage, whether it’s lighting, mirrors, microphones or even his hand movements. He’s maybe the world’s first emo illusionist.

It’s certainly an original take on the classical magic show, and is potentially more affecting than making the Statue of Liberty go poof. (I speak vaguely, not wanting to spoil any surprises.) Weirdly, the audience participation segment demands a degree of emotional vulnerability you’d never expect; if it seems off-putting at first — especially when one woman shares a deeply personal story on stage — he returns the volley with some tears of his own at the end of the show, his voice cracking a bit as he shares an exercise in self-reflection with the audience, exploring ideas addressing how we present and perceive ourselves. Of course, here we sit, at home, at a distance, always wanting to be the smarter person, the unduped. But the connection DelGaudio makes with his audience is real, and maybe those ends justify the shifty means with which he gets there.

Our Call: STREAM IT. DelGaudio certainly can be mesmerizing, and the movie version of In and Of Itself keenly captures his ability to draw us in.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Derek DelGaudio's In and Of Itself on Hulu