Zelig

Zelig (1983) is Woody Allen's mockumentary comedy you can watch online on iFILM. It plays as a fake archival record of America in the 1920s, built around a man who has no shape of his own.

Leonard Zelig wants so badly to fit in that he physically becomes whoever stands next to him: he grows heavy among heavy men, speaks Chinese among the Chinese, turns into a doctor among doctors. The newspapers make him a freak-show celebrity, and psychiatrist Eudora Fletcher, played by Mia Farrow, tries to cure him and slowly falls for him instead. Allen spliced himself into real newsreels beside Woodrow Wilson and Babe Ruth decades before digital tricks made that easy.

The film runs a lean 79 minutes, all scratched stock footage, deadpan "expert" interviews and a dry narrator. Underneath the joke about fame sits a quiet question about the fear of being yourself when the crowd keeps reshaping you. Watch Zelig (1983) online on iFILM.