Review of My Scientology Movie (2016) by Matt C — 10 Sep 2016

I'm not entirely familiar with Louis Theroux aside from seeing The Most Hated Family in America, a 2007 television documentary that I thought was great. As I went into seeing My Scientology Movie, I was expecting to get a ton of his deadpan humor and woven into a behind-the-scenes look at what is basically the largest cult in Western civilization in the past few decades.

While it is generally funny, it also doesn't have that much to say or quite enough new knowledge to impart onto its audience, and this becomes increasingly apparent as the film begins to drag and its structure starts to fall apart.

The film, directed John Dower--although his voice is kept to a minimum in exchange for Theroux's--is essentially Theroux contacting a few former Scientologists who have defected from the organization.

As they inform him of their experiences, Theroux begins to enlist actors to recreate what he's told about in order to really get the full picture of what they've gone through. Spliced with this are his investigations into the Church of Scientology's property, which basically leads to him trolling a bunch of mysterious officials that get more and more annoyed as he uses his sarcasm against them.

Before I write anything more, let me say this: I have not seen Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, so nothing that I say regarding My Scientology Movie has to do with comparisons to the former.

That said, this is movie that's fun and entertaining for a while until it starts to lose its sense of direction. It's 99 minutes and would have been better suited as a one-hour television special than a theatrical feature; it would have been much tighter that way.

The reason that I can't call this a bad documentary is because Theroux is really funny. He has a great presence and the way in which the antagonizes Scientologists at some parts is entertaining in how knowingly petty it is.

There are also some moments that are thought-provoking. The issue is that I don't feel like I learned anything new here, and it's not like I'm a person that researches Scientology. It's just that, to an extent, the movie becomes more of an exercise in wringing entertainment out of the subject instead of really exploring it.

The structure also suffers whenever the film revisits the enlisted actors in their recreations of Scientologists' testimonials--everyone else feels so organic that these segments feel out of place and don't contribute much.

So while I can surely say that My Scientology Movie has entertainment value and a good amount of laughs, I can't really say that it's an enlightening look at its subject. The feature runtime places too much emphasize on the humor, which, while enjoyable, minimizes the commentary when the film has some.

The success of the film mostly coasts on Theroux's ability as a presenter, but the film as a whole is ultimately a bit of a letdown given what it could have been. 6.3/10, okay, one thumb down, average, etc.