Composed of archival footage of the titular musical legend and testimonials from those who worked with him or whose lives were profoundly impacted by his courage, Little Richard: I Am Everything feels comprehensive but is also oddly lacking. The documentary makes a bold, confident claim: that all popular music today can be directly traced to his work. And when the film lets itself get into full music nerd mode, it's easy to be convinced. But after you accept that perspective on Little Richard, the rest of the movie seems like it's just spinning its wheels, covering key moments in the artist's life and career without really challenging or substantiating long-held ideas about him.

Chief among these is Little Richard's shifting feelings toward his own queerness—proudly expressing his true self one year, then openly denouncing his own homosexuality the next. This subject matter is ripe for difficult but insightful analysis, which the film just never gets around to. It begins to feel like the believes there is no more discussion to be had about him. And that may very well be true; he deserves the flowers that were denied him for so long. But this attitude doesn't necessarily make for the best documentary.

As much as I Am Everything seems to keep fast-forwarding through darker moments, its final tributes to Little Richard are still undeniably moving. People should still be allowed to feel however they feel about Little Richard and the self-loathing that would manifest into anti-gay rhetoric, but it's exactly this conflictedness that gives the film's concluding sections so much weight. In fact, this is a quality that the rest of the movie probably should've had to be truly worthy of its endlessly complicated subject. As we see him finally accept these awards in the late stages of his career, we do actually feel everything.