One film sure to be a talking point at the Edinburgh Film Festival, and on a wider stage when it goes on general release a week later, is the documentary A Complete History of My Sexual Failures.


After being dumped for the umpteenth time, Chris Waitt decided to turn the cameras on himself to find out where he was going wrong. So he calls old girlfriends and asks to interview them, does pieces to camera musing about his romantic woes, talks to his mum, and strangers on the street. Some will find his emotional navel-gazing touching and funny, others wildly annoying. Whatever else Waitt is doing, he’s taking the “me documentary” to its logical extreme.


When Michael Moore and Nick Broomfield first put themselves in the frame it was a novel and daring move. Getting the story, particularly in Moore’s case with Roger & Me, meant becoming part of the story. Moore and Broomfield had the right personalities for the job. They have proven to be hard acts to live up to, in part because publicity agents have become wise to the rebel documentary makers’ way of working. To be granted “access all areas” around stars today you usually have to be on the payroll or have a personal connection to the subject.


Without access to big names, the me documentarist is going for the ultra personal angle. Waitt certainly doesn’t spare his own blushes, or those of his exes. After seeing the film twice, I’m still not sure whether discretion wouldn’t have been the better part of valour in his case. See it and see what you think.


Coming soon:
A Complete History of My Sexual Failures. Showing at the Edinburgh Film Festival at 8.30pm tonight and 8.15pm Saturday (Cameo). On wider release from June 27.
July 4: Squatters at large in NYC in The Visitor.
July 11: Meryl Streep sings for her supper in Mammia Mia.
July 18: The goings on at Abu Ghraib are picked apart in Errol Morris’s documentary Standard Operating Procedure. Also showing at the EFF, Saturday 7.30pm, Sunday 5.30pm, Cineworld.
July 25: Career woman goes maybe baby crazy in the comedy Baby Mama.


Pick of the week
Summer Hours at the film festival, and on wider release next month.