Movie Review

ENLIGHTEN UP

This is what I would describe as "documentary-lite".

The premise of this film is that yoga can transform anyone. The filmmaker, Kate Churchill, sets out to prove her point. She's very determined to make this happen, which costs the film some credibility. She pushes, cajoles, accuses, and pouts (mostly off-camera, though sometimes on) throughout the movie, which takes away from the subject matter and made me really annoyed.

At the beginning of the movie, she shows a board filled with head-shots and short bio's of people who she is considering filming through their yoga-journey. We see men and women of varying sizes, ages, races. Who does she choose? Why, the cute 30-something Nick Rosen. Natch. This is where the film starts to lose credibility for me. Sure, he's eye candy, but can he hold my attention for the next 90 minutes?

Not so much.

He's really kind of a blank-slate slacker. He never really seemed excited about or interested in exploring the transformative reputation yoga has over thousands of people. He's currently an out-of-work journalist, so I got the feeling that this "journey" would be a nice segwey into his next assignment, and the pay would keep him afloat while allowing him a nice, long vacation. Win-win for both subject and filmmaker. Lose-lose for the viewer.

Technically speaking, there were some overly-long shots here and there which didn't make sense (had they run out of footage and were reaching?), and also some jarring cut-offs. The travel transitions were bone-shattering loud and visually shakey, so they must have saved some money to soup this up in post-production.

I did enjoy hearing the viewpoints from some of the yoga masters - it's all very existential and ethereal, and the transformation is ongoing and from within. Most made a point to say that Westerners believe the transformation on the outside brings about the change to the inside, which isn't the case in the East. Any transformation on the outside is an indirect side-effect from the inner-journey. I liked this.

I appreciated Nick for who he was - I never got the feeling he feigned interested for the camera, he seemed to stay true to his slacker nature, but I was bored listening to him after awhile. I cannot forgive the filmmaker for making what felt like a tangible push for change - she even turns the focus at the end of the movie on her, with a last tidbit of wisdom while she strikes a pose. Eh.