Movie Review: Wormwood

Wormwood **** / *****

Directed by: Errol Morris.

Written by: Kiernan Fitzgerald & Steven Hathaway & Molly Rokosz.

Starring: Peter Sarsgaard (Frank Olson).

 

Errol Morris is 69 years old, an age when many filmmakers would be resting on their laurels, either retired, or just repeating themselves. But Morris, who is one of the greatest documentary filmmakers in history, who pretty much re-invented the genre with The Thin Blue Line (1988) (which is arguably, not even his best film) isn’t one of those filmmakers. His latest film, Wormwood, takes what he has done in his career, and pushes it into even bolder territory. It’s not a perfect film – it’s too long, it repeats itself, and some parts in the middle seem to get close to indulging in crazy conspiracy theories (instead of the regular old weird conspiracy theories of the rest of the film) – but it’s thrilling to see a filmmaker like Morris attempt something as bold as this, at this stage of his career.

 

The film focuses on the death of Frank Olson – a government scientist, who worked on some very secret projects, with various organizations within the government. In 1953, Olson died after he fell out of a hotel window, and crashed to the pavement below. Or did he jump? Or was he thrown? The government tried to remain quiet on these questions for decades – but in 1975, it released their official explanation – that Olson was among those who they tested the drug LSD – which they invented – on. The drug interacted with Olson’s mental issues, and history of depression, and perhaps led him to his death by suicide. For most, this is the end of the story – the government admits wrongdoing, but not too much, and an embarrassing mystery is solved. But for Eric Olson, Frank’s son, it is just the beginning. Eric has spent more than 60 years trying to find out all he can about his father’s death – the men he worked for, the work he was doing, and why some in the government may have wanted Frank Olson dead. Is this a far bigger conspiracy then anyone could have imagined?

 

Morris himself has admitted the film is something of a greatest hits package for him – combining elements of many of his films, into one mammoth package. The film is 241 minutes long – it’s playing in a few theaters, but most will watch it as I did, on Netflix, where they separated it out into 6 parts (I watched them in a row, in one big binge – I usually hate binge watching, but the breaks here seem arbitrary, and the film is a large whole). There are, of course, elements of The Thin Blue Line here, with its look at true crime, and re-enactments. But here, Morris pushes those re-enactments even further – casting Peter Sarsgaard as Frank Olson, and a host of other recognizable faces – Molly Parker, Tim Blake Nelson, Scott Shepherd, etc. – as the people in his life leading up to his death. These re-enactments, return – again and again (and again and again and again) to that hotel room, and what may or may not have happened there. Yes, all this does become repetitive at some point, but also underlines the obsession of Eric Olson about his father’s death (how many times has his mind returned to that hotel room?). Eric Olson is a classic Morris subject – obsessive in the same way that the people in say Fast, Cheap and Out of Control (1997) are – but he simply cannot let it go.

 

The final episode (in Netflix terms) was for me the strongest of the film. The film does a great job in the first couple of hours of giving us all sorts of background into the government, and their various projects – the LSD project, that Frank Olson was apparently a guinea pig in, to the biological weapons Eric is convinced his dad knew about – and wanted to expose (this dovetails nicely with Morris’ own fascinating with government secrets and lies, as seen in The Fog of War, Standard Operating Procedure or The Unknown Known). It flags a little bit in its third hour, as it starts to repeat itself, or chasing down even wilder tales. But in the final hour, Morris does something fascinating. First, he does bring on a respected, veteran journalist, who while he cannot quite confirm Olson’s theory of his father, won’t refute it either – saying that he has a source, that gave him some information – but there is no way for him to reveal that information, without exposing, and thus, endangering that source. But then Morris pushes Eric even further, essentially asking him if all this obsession was worth it, and even if he could prove it all, what would it really change? At this point, the death is more than 60 years old – no one is ever going to be held accountable for it. And in the meantime, Eric has essentially given up everything else in his life, to chase this down. It’s a question that doesn’t get asked enough in docs like this, and it’s to Eric Olson’s credit that he has the self-awareness to answer in the way he does. It’s here where the film gets its title from – it’s all Wormwood, it’s all bitter.