My Scientology Movie (Netflix)

British documentarian Louis Theroux has made a specialty of in-depth portraits of segments of the population, going into their often sheltered worlds and spending time with them to really try to understand who they are and what leads to beliefs and choices that are often at odds with the world around them. For My Scientology Movie, now on Netflix, he hits a wall pretty early. Scientology is famous for its unwillingness to let outsiders inside the walls of their church and that is true from the get-go here. Theroux instead relies on former members to tell stories about what their life was like in Scientology and casts actors to play major characters in the organization — a choice that seems to be echoing Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s desire to fill the religion with actors to help spread his beliefs.

There is little to be learned about Scientology from Theroux’s movie. It doesn’t give any new information about the religion that you can’t get from the numerous books, articles, and documentaries that already abound. What is does give you, though, is a first-hand glimpse into the way Scientologists deal with those trying to discover what goes on behind their closed doors. Theroux has several encounters with Scientologists, who sometimes show up outside his studio or who confront him whenever he nears the Scientology headquarters, and he lets the camera roll as he confronts them. It lets us take in the Scientologists’ hauntingly stoic responses or the way they twist his words around for ourselves, which is something that has to be seen to be believed. Theroux always remains calm, and seems genuine in his desire to really want to talk and learn from them, even if the film tries to play itself for laughs at these moments a little too much. If anything, My Scientology Movie seems to really want us to be able to make our own decisions about the religion and the people who are part of it.

This is also true of the man who becomes the film’s most compelling character, Marty Rathbun — who it should be pointed out has, since filming, disowned the film and campaigned against it. Rathbun is a former Scientology bigwig who left the church over a decade ago and becomes Theroux’s right hand man in the film. The church claims he is vengeful and unstable, and as the film progresses we see him get more and more agitated with the filmmakers and what they are doing while also having to deal with pressure from church members who seemingly show up randomly to harass him. It is up to us to decide, however, what Rathbun’s true character is — whether he is unstable and misconstruing the actions of his former religion, or whether the leaders of that religion made him unstable in a PTSD situation. Theroux doesn’t try to make us believe one way or the other, and like everything else in the film, merely lays out what he sees and lets us read between the lines for ourselves.

Diana, Our Mother (HBO Go/HBO Now)

Diana, Our Mother, a BBC-produced documentary that HBO picked up the American rights to, is a brief portrait of the late Princess of Wales as seen mostly through the eyes of her two sons. If there are a lot of noble ideas that the film tries to present, it is unfortunate that it doesn’t do it in any interesting way. The film, filled with cheesy music and never delving much beneath the surface, feels like a network news magazine special — glossy and filled with famous faces but shallow in the end. It contains some interesting stories about a playful Diana playing tricks on her sons, but also contains manufactured moments of William and Harry meeting people whose lives were touched by their mother that don’t add anything to our understanding of who she was. It is a missed opportunity of a movie.