I had to clenched-teeth-emoji my way through Look Into My Eyes (now streaming on Max), since director Lana Wilson spends a good portion of the documentary sort-of eavesdropping on psychic readings. Of course, there’s more to the film than cringey scenes in which an “animal psychic” ponders why birds seem to routinely croak at the feet of one woman, or a variety of spiritual mediums claim to be hanging out with the dead – Wilson is less interested in debunking or stumping for such hooey, and more interested in probing why people visit them, and what motivates the psychics themselves. And also of course, asking such questions yields compelling results.
The Gist: We open with a close-up of a woman who shares a traumatic moment from decades ago. She’s 50, a doctor. She was new to the field when a young girl was rushed to the emergency room after being shot in the head. The girl didn’t make it there alive. Our doctor had to tell the girl’s parents awful, shattering news – then take a brief moment to cry before sucking it up and going back to work, to the next patient. She’s clearly haunted by the experience. “So I guess my question is,” she asks, “how is she?”
The film’s opening portion cycles through a few different sessions with psychics in New York City: A Chinese woman adopted by Americans wants to know if her birth parents, wholly unknown to her, ever think about her. One psychic sits down and senses her client’s grandmother – or mother? – in the room. (It was the grandmother.) A woman wants to know what her dog is thinking when he refuses to be good on his leash; “It’s always a battle,” she says, noting that the dog is otherwise wonderful, while also recognizing that it’s a bit silly to be so bothered by this. The interactions between medium and client feel deeply personal and intimate, a hair shy of psychoanalysis. These people, their faces hopeful, want something – affirmation, answers, closure. Can they not get it anywhere else?
Then Wilson follows one of the psychics home – note, no names of psychics or clients are given, although we might glean some from context – where we learn he’s a struggling actor, and he shows off the sweatshirt he had made bearing the visage of his beloved cat. He says he was witness to paranormal phenomena in his apartment, which inspired him to take “psychic classes” and become a medium. We meet another psychic, whose apartment is so cluttered, the documentary crew struggles to find a place to set up; we follow him to singing lessons and, eventually, an open-mic night. As for the animal-psychic lady? She’s a self-described recluse and film buff who loves John Waters and has a Werner Herzog Even Dwarfs Started Small poster on the wall; she talks about how her teenage self used to snort cocaine with her father, but now she seems to have righted herself, thanks to the business of reading the minds of schnauzers and bearded dragons.
We hop among seven different psychics, soaking up bits of their personal lives and noticing how their own experiences – inevitably traumatic – sometimes reflect in those of their clients. Wilson strings together a number of quiet moments where all of these people open up about the most upsetting parts of their lives. Sometimes, Wilson asks a tough question and gets surprisingly honest answers: “Do you ever wonder if it’s not real?” she asks one psychic, who replies, “Yeah, all the time,” and the moment brought to mind how even the most devoted religious people frequently question their faith. Another psychic ties her work directly to her experience in improvisational theater. It soon becomes clear that this movie isn’t at all challenging the truth and reality of psychic powers – it’s about people on both sides of the exchange working through their own shit.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Wilson’s approach is a less chilly, Interrotron-y version of Errol Morris, who employed similar fascination and curiosity in his explorations of societal fringe-dwellers in docs like Vernon, Florida and Gates of Heaven.
Performance Worth Watching: Cheers to the animal psychic’s on-point taste in movies – and her ability to roll with everything from the odd dead-bird lady to a woman who got comfort and protection from her dog while she was in a physically and mentally abusive relationship.
Memorable Dialogue: One psychic nails the film’s thesis: “Sometimes I think the healers need the most healing.”
Sex and Skin: None.
Our Take: Full disclosure: Significant portions of Look Into My Eyes made me want to crawl out of my skin. Listening to the intimate details of someone’s loss and/or yearning can be difficult, but within the context of absurd psychic-medium woo-woo? Ugh. The juxtaposition of raw, honest truth with utter hornswaggle is grossly ironic. Skeptics will find the series of hurdles the film sets up rather grueling – moment after moment of mediums closing their eyes and saying stuff like “these are messages that I’m hearing for you,” or immediately “contacting” a client’s dead loved one (“Call that dude in!” one psychic exclaims), or repeating themselves as they try to come up with something profound to say. It feels at best phony and at worst exploitationist.
But this is nothing new. And Wilson is aware of it. Perhaps it’s worth noting that she never addresses the exchange of money for psychic services; such cynicism would undermine her attempt at finding the truth beneath the bullshit. In one scene, a psychic flounders in his attempt to connect his client with his vision of a man who likes skateboarding, so he turns to the filmmakers and asks if he’s tapping into any of their psychic residue – rough day at the office. But it’s difficult to criticize the psychic once we understand more of who he is and what he’s working through; he’s the one I mentioned earlier, who’s having a crisis of faith.
Wilson digs beneath the surface of these readings and quasi-seances to find people wrestling intently with their pain. It ultimately doesn’t matter if you or I or anyone in the film believes in this stuff, because it soon becomes clear that these people, both psychic and client, desire either deeper human connection or a warm, comforting place to open their hearts. (It strikes me that a therapist might be the more conventional option, but would the result be much different?)
The sessions Wilson captures allow us to lean in and study the minutiae of the participants’ expressions and reactions – some clients seem to know they’re playing a game that results in their hearing what they need to hear to feel better for a bit, while others seem to buy at least some of the hooey. But ultimately, belief may have nothing to do with it for them, either. Some psychics are mindful of the performative nature of their business, while others are more intense. All have a tendency to spew generic one-size-fits-most platitudes, and use the common manipulative tricks of the trade that diligent skeptics have exposed countless times. There’s a moment deep in the film when all seven of Wilson’s psychic subjects pile into the same room for what resembles a group therapy session, and then they share their traumas and do readings on each other. They need the release, too. And it’s hard to judge anyone seeking a little salve, no matter the means.
Our Call: Look Into My Eyes is challenging on multiple fronts – and fascinating too. STREAM IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
