DAVID BIANCULLI

Founder / Editor

ERIC GOULD

Associate Editor

LINDA DONOVAN

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Contributors

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NOEL HOLSTON

 
 
 
 
 
IT'S ME, HILARY: THE MAN WHO DREW ELOISE
March 23, 2015  | By David Bianculli

HBO, 9:00 p.m. ET

 

Matt Wolf directed this documentary, but Lena Dunham, one of its executive producers and on-air interviewers, is the spiritual tour guide. The subject she’s profiling is Hilary Knight, the illustrator of the Eliose children’s books about the precocious little girl who lived in New York’s Plaza Hotel. Dunham clearly is enchanted by the man’s free-spirited drawings, his artifact-filled home and his uninhibited imagination, which results in home-movie “productions” that make this feel like an unofficial sequel to Grey Gardens. The documentary takes Knight’s side in his quick falling out with Kay Thompson, author of Eloise – and when you see and hear her irritatingly imitating the voice of her young alter ego, you’re likely to take Knight’s side as well. And since Dunham sports a tattoo of Eliose, this is a peek into her psyche as well as Knight’s.

 
 
 
 
 
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