An examination of the notorious high priest of LSD Timothy Leary through the eyes of his famed lover Joanna Harcourt-Smith. Academy Award® winning director Errol Morris recounts the wild adventures of two seemingly innocent people on the run in this international saga of mystery and lust. But was Leary's "perfect love" a CIA plant who helped take him down? Or was she simply a rich, beautiful young woman out for the adventure of a lifetime with the man Richard Nixon called "P... (Full plot summary below)
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An examination of the notorious high priest of LSD Timothy Leary through the eyes of his famed lover Joanna Harcourt-Smith. Academy Award® winning director Errol Morris recounts the wild adventures of two seemingly innocent people on the run in this international saga of mystery and lust. But was Leary's "perfect love" a CIA plant who helped take him down? Or was she simply a rich, beautiful young woman out for the adventure of a lifetime with the man Richard Nixon called "Public Enemy #1"?
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| The Film StageDavid KatzHarcourt-Smith’s story is ultimately tragic, but still triumphant. She retains nothing but integrity, whilst her associates were on a path to extinguish all of theirs. |
| RogerEbert.comSheila O'MalleyThere's enough material here to fill an entire multi-part docu-series, but My Psychedelic Love Story is an intriguing and often-humorous look at these crazy events, anchored by Harcourt-Smith's presence. She’s the reason to see it. You can understand why nobody who met her ever forgot her. |
| TheWrapAlonso DuraldeThere’s not a lot in My Psychedelic Love Story that’s necessarily going to grab viewers who aren’t already interested in the era and in the notable figures in LSD history. But as a spotlight for a woman who knows how to spin a yarn – and as an inducement to pick up a copy of her memoir – this new documentary definitely finds its groove. |
| Washington PostAnn HornadayLuckily, Morris caught up with Harcourt-Smith before she left for the next stop: She’s the best thing about My Psychedelic Love Story, and a far more sympathetic and compelling character than the man she almost risked her life for. |
| IndieWireEric KohnIt’s a welcome return to form for a filmmaker whose form is all about the slippery search for truth. |
| Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonMr. Morris is among the most intellectual of documentary makers, but on an artisanal level his trademark is the head-on confrontation, the face-to-face interview. In refining that process, he developed the Interrotron, which enables him to interview a subject eye-to-eye while still having that subject look directly into the camera. |
| Film ThreatAlex SavelievMorris utilizes psychedelic neon colors, bold titles, and a hallucinatory score to emphasize the craziness of her life. He has devilish fun piecing together Joanna’s fractured past. It just feels like, in his search for Truth, he’s lost his way a little this time. |
| Slant MagazineChuck BowenIn Morris’s best films, such as The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography, there’s a sense that the director is truly simpatico with his subjects. In My Psychedelic Love Story, though, Morris lets a fading never-quite-legend blather her way into a trap. |
| VarietyOwen GleibermanWhen you watch a documentary, some talking heads are more arresting than others, and Joanna Harcourt-Smith, seated before Morris’ camera, seems like a supporting player who’s been elevated to the lead. |
| User ReviewBrent_MarchantTo paraphrase the Grateful Dead, "What a long strange trip it was" (emphasis on the word "long"). Director Errol Morris's protracted Showtime TV documentary about Joanna Harcourt-Smith, LSD guru Timothy Leary's so-called "perfect woman," tells the story of their time together at the height of the psychedelic era, including their globe-trotting days on the run from authorities to evade capture for drug law violations. While some of Harcourt-Smith's stories are indeed entertaining and colorful, many of them ramble on endlessly, leaving viewers wondering if they have a point -- or a conclusion. Meanwhile, others are so outlandish that they stretch credibility and come across more like tall tales, a possibility that's not entirely improbable given Harcourt-Smith's own admission to having been a chronic liar in her youth. Ultimately, though, much of this film just isn't particularly interesting, a collection of essentially insignificant anecdotes that don't shed any revelatory light on the principals, the era in which they lived or their legacies. It seems like this material could have provided rich fodder for an engaging picture, but it instead presents little more than a name-dropping counterculture tell-all, the kind of story swapping to come out of a conclave of aging hippies. |
