A disarming but low-impact documentary that amounts to an odd dual biopic, “Shepard & Dark” can feel a bit like intruding on a conversation between two old friends.
Playwright-actor Sam Shepard and Johnny Dark, an artistically minded journeyman who has held various odd jobs, met in Greenwich Village after Dark, seeing one of Shepard’s early plays, inquired as to what drugs he might have been on when writing it. Shepard went on to marry the daughter of Dark’s wife, and both families lived together communally as Shepard gradually became a celebrity — then left his wife and son for actress Jessica Lange in the 1980s.
The film is insightful and touching, particularly as the friends, who sold their 40 years of correspondence to a university, discuss their memories of jointly caring for Dark’s wife after she suffered a brain injury that eventually killed her. But the film is visually uninspired and meanders, as old friends’ chats tend to do. It also avoids delving too deeply into touchy areas.