This is a tough one. A lot of reviewers here seem to have loved it; they've had an emotional response. I did, too. When Jonah brings out the poster of himself as a teenager and talks about letting that kid back into his life, I cried. I have my own 14 year-old self that I'm ashamed of at times, and have tried to disconnect from. That's the point -- many of us do.
But Stutz is a documentary. And a documentary has a certain objective. Even in today's world, where there are docs about pretty much everything and anything, we still need to have some way to measure it. What was its aim, and did it work?
Jonah claims he wants to make a doc about his therapist to share with others the great mental health tools psychiatrist Phil Stutz has given him. No drugs are mentioned (although Stutz, as a doctor, can prescribe), but basic stuff, like visualizing activities and reframing techniques. Things derived from basic psychology, such as Maslow's hierarchy of needs, or Buddhism's loving-kindness.
Stutz, the man, is lovely. He's self-deprecating and funny and you have extra empathy for him because of the Parkinson's. The documentary peeks into his past a bit, but it feels like certain things are off limits, that even Stutz has a few guards up.
The tools go by quickly, and there are a lot of them: Part X. Wave of gratitude. The shadow. The snapshot. Pain / Uncertainty / Constant work. The pearls and the turds. I found myself looking for a pen and paper. I wished we'd spent a little more time lingering on each one, or that there was a pause to summarize them at some point, to build a better picture of how Stutz works. For, he says, near the beginning, at the outset of therapy, he tells his patients he's going to give them tools so that they start feeling better right away. He guarantees it. It's a bold, unorthodox style, but it's not quite captured in the doc.
I found myself wishing for more of a story about what state Jonah was in when he met Stutz, and actual, practical examples of how those immediate tools worked for him, and so on. Jonah says he didn't want to make the film about himself, but he's the patient of the therapist who's the subject of his film! It's a conflict that he has to soon resolve, or try to.
About a third of the way in, a visibly anxious Jonah admits to Stutz - and us - that he's struggling with this doc. That it's been two years in the making (two years??). He reveals that they're sitting in front of a green screen, and wearing the same clothes, and he even has a wig because he cut his hair at some point. But after that moment, the wig is rarely, if ever, visible again. What was that all about?
Again, I sense some truth being protected, or guarded. Why did this documentary take two years? Why does it really seems like it could've been shot in a couple of days? What held it up? Why, out of nowhere, is Jonah's mother brought in? What did that do? Why did I feel like I couldn't follow certain conversations, like the editing snipped a bit of context?
I'm not suggesting anything was staged, but the conversation with his mother felt odd, at a distance. The weird joke about Stutz saying he "banged her" was awkward. Again, there's this distance felt between me, the viewer, and Stutz and Jonah, the subjects. It doesn't help that Jonah Hill, the person, is a bit hard to separate from some of his movie roles. In telling Stutz he loves him, I'm reminded of his character in Superbad telling his best friend Evan the same thing. He uses some words questionably, such as absolve and placate, and it contributed to an idea of someone playing a part, in this case a surfer dude caught up in a west coast wellness culture.
Finally, near the end, the film veers completely from documentary to art house when Stutz claims he wants to lie down, walks into the other room, gets in a bed, and the green screen fills in with oceanic views. He proceeds to have some kind of vision, his eyes squinted shut, his mouth open, about his baby brother who passed away years before. It's all very interesting and touching, but again, nothing really like a documentary.
In the end, Stutz, the film, never quite lets you in all the way. It's more mystery than reveal, more experimental film than doc. I applaud Jonah Hill sincerely for his willingness to be vulnerable and share his journey, but this felt, at times, inauthentic to me. And I say that not to be mean, or to just find something to criticize, but because authenticity seems to be something Jonah is striving for. There's that scene where he's looking at a picture of himself taken shortly after he started coming to see Stutz, and he observes how he seems stripped of anything false. I think he was trying to do that here with this film. Shot in black and white, with Jonah in a simple white t-shirt, the green screen laid bare without any effects, it seems to be yearning for authenticity in its aesthetic. But something -- some Part X, maybe -- nevertheless got in there and muddled it up.
Maybe, then, it's just like Stutz said. A pearl with a turd in it.
But Stutz is a documentary. And a documentary has a certain objective. Even in today's world, where there are docs about pretty much everything and anything, we still need to have some way to measure it. What was its aim, and did it work?
Jonah claims he wants to make a doc about his therapist to share with others the great mental health tools psychiatrist Phil Stutz has given him. No drugs are mentioned (although Stutz, as a doctor, can prescribe), but basic stuff, like visualizing activities and reframing techniques. Things derived from basic psychology, such as Maslow's hierarchy of needs, or Buddhism's loving-kindness.
Stutz, the man, is lovely. He's self-deprecating and funny and you have extra empathy for him because of the Parkinson's. The documentary peeks into his past a bit, but it feels like certain things are off limits, that even Stutz has a few guards up.
The tools go by quickly, and there are a lot of them: Part X. Wave of gratitude. The shadow. The snapshot. Pain / Uncertainty / Constant work. The pearls and the turds. I found myself looking for a pen and paper. I wished we'd spent a little more time lingering on each one, or that there was a pause to summarize them at some point, to build a better picture of how Stutz works. For, he says, near the beginning, at the outset of therapy, he tells his patients he's going to give them tools so that they start feeling better right away. He guarantees it. It's a bold, unorthodox style, but it's not quite captured in the doc.
I found myself wishing for more of a story about what state Jonah was in when he met Stutz, and actual, practical examples of how those immediate tools worked for him, and so on. Jonah says he didn't want to make the film about himself, but he's the patient of the therapist who's the subject of his film! It's a conflict that he has to soon resolve, or try to.
About a third of the way in, a visibly anxious Jonah admits to Stutz - and us - that he's struggling with this doc. That it's been two years in the making (two years??). He reveals that they're sitting in front of a green screen, and wearing the same clothes, and he even has a wig because he cut his hair at some point. But after that moment, the wig is rarely, if ever, visible again. What was that all about?
Again, I sense some truth being protected, or guarded. Why did this documentary take two years? Why does it really seems like it could've been shot in a couple of days? What held it up? Why, out of nowhere, is Jonah's mother brought in? What did that do? Why did I feel like I couldn't follow certain conversations, like the editing snipped a bit of context?
I'm not suggesting anything was staged, but the conversation with his mother felt odd, at a distance. The weird joke about Stutz saying he "banged her" was awkward. Again, there's this distance felt between me, the viewer, and Stutz and Jonah, the subjects. It doesn't help that Jonah Hill, the person, is a bit hard to separate from some of his movie roles. In telling Stutz he loves him, I'm reminded of his character in Superbad telling his best friend Evan the same thing. He uses some words questionably, such as absolve and placate, and it contributed to an idea of someone playing a part, in this case a surfer dude caught up in a west coast wellness culture.
Finally, near the end, the film veers completely from documentary to art house when Stutz claims he wants to lie down, walks into the other room, gets in a bed, and the green screen fills in with oceanic views. He proceeds to have some kind of vision, his eyes squinted shut, his mouth open, about his baby brother who passed away years before. It's all very interesting and touching, but again, nothing really like a documentary.
In the end, Stutz, the film, never quite lets you in all the way. It's more mystery than reveal, more experimental film than doc. I applaud Jonah Hill sincerely for his willingness to be vulnerable and share his journey, but this felt, at times, inauthentic to me. And I say that not to be mean, or to just find something to criticize, but because authenticity seems to be something Jonah is striving for. There's that scene where he's looking at a picture of himself taken shortly after he started coming to see Stutz, and he observes how he seems stripped of anything false. I think he was trying to do that here with this film. Shot in black and white, with Jonah in a simple white t-shirt, the green screen laid bare without any effects, it seems to be yearning for authenticity in its aesthetic. But something -- some Part X, maybe -- nevertheless got in there and muddled it up.
Maybe, then, it's just like Stutz said. A pearl with a turd in it.