Fans and critics adored Moby’s album Play. Released in 1999, it still stands as one of the best electronic albums ever made. But critics are not feeling his new documentary. Blurb for the film calls Moby Doc “the creative, offbeat, wry, music-filled chronicle of an eventful life examined”. The musician describes the movie as “a unique and idiosyncratic film about my life, my activism and my music.”
“One of the goals in making Moby Doc was to try and make an honest and unconventional music documentary unlike any other music documentary. I think we succeeded,” said Moby.
Panned
Reviews of the movie are not kind, with many critics panning the documentary. Here’s what a few have to say…
“While the credited director is Robert Gordon Bralver, the movie is clearly a late-life self-realization project for Moby himself. His presentation is a textbook example of the art of self-aggrandizement through affected self-effacement. ‘Like all people with timid personalities, his arrogance is unlimited,’ Orson Welles once said of Woody Allen. Ditto with this guy.” Glenn Kenny, New York Times
Pretentious
“At the moment, you may harbor vague suspicions that the music-maker known as Moby is a pretentious self-absorbed twit. That feeling, however, will not survive a viewing of his new documentary Moby Doc. No, by the end of the film you will be in a state of absolute metaphysical conviction that Moby is a pretentious self-absorbed twit.
“Moby Doc is a twee pity party heaping with bursts of cutesy animation and deadpan irony that are meant to make a 90-minute testament to its subject’s suffering palatable. Instead, the sensation generated is powerfully emetic.” Kyle Smith, National Review
Insufferable
“…an insufferable movie that wants to be profound and benign in equal measure. Moby hasn’t always been the most likable of musicians since Play made him a household name, and this new documentary doesn’t help. After insisting that this isn’t just going to be “another biopic about a weird musician”, Moby precedes to unspool exactly that. The only difference is how hard, and how transparently, he and Bralver try to disguise that.” David Ehrlich, IndieWire
Nothingness
“…most of Moby Doc was shot as if by an art student from the ’80s who just discovered early David Lynch. For a man who has written multiple memoirs, Moby’s introspection is somewhere in the range of ‘moderate’, but his accumulated takeaways are close to nil. As the punny title suggests, Moby Doc is an epic journey, one that leads to a non-nihilistic nothingness.” Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter
Watch the official trailer for Moby Doc below.
Last Word
Let’s give the last word to Moby. Speaking to Deadline about Moby Doc, he stated: “I fully know that this seems like a gratuitous exercise in narcissism. I happily accept that on the surface, that’s what it looks like. I guess my hope is that people will be able to get past their understandable prejudice, their empirically-supported prejudice, and actually watch the movie, because I think the movie itself is not a gratuitous EPK or narcissism at large.”
Moby’s “orchestral greatest hits” album Reprise is also out now on Deutsche Grammophon. Listen to the Reprise Version of Porcelain below.
Photos: Travis Schneider
