"Must Read After My Death"

By David Hudson on 02/19/2009

[Updated through 2/21]

"Everything is different in hindsight," writes Cullen Gallagher at Hammer to Nail. "Perspective allows us to see things more clearly. And this is precisely what is missing in Morgan Dews's piercing documentary 'Must Read After My Death,' and also what makes the film so singular, so touching and traumatic to watch." The film "is based on the audio diaries and home movies of Dews's grandmother, Allis, which the director discovered after her passing in 2001. More than just family mementos, the audiotapes documented the emotional and psychological near-collapse of Allis's family in the 1960s."

"An artful arranger of evidence, Dews tacitly shifts the balance of domestic power to his grandmother," writes Ella Taylor in the Voice. "Honoring both her shocking vulnerability and the rebellious spirit that her domineering spouse never fully quashed, Dews helps Allis hold out a gendered posthumous snapshot of an era whose smug surface, barely masking oceans of suffering, makes 'Revolutionary Road' look like a tea party."

"Dews's story may not have anything eye-openingly novel to say about how cultures, and idealistic notions about what happiness is and how it should be attained, compel people to embark upon unwanted paths for which they aren't truly suited," writes Nick Schager at Screengrab. "Still, the formal deftness with which his documentary is crafted, aided by Paul Damian Hogan's melancholic score and exemplified by a shot of departing cruise ships wedded to Allis discussing her marriage's 'communication breakdown,' nonetheless infuses 'Must Read After My Death' with a mixture of lyrical tenderness and open-wound rawness that's at once precise and universal."

Mark Holcomb in Time Out New York: "Even as deeply flawed and unforgivably selfish as this couple was, 'Must Read After My Death' finds something heroic in their resistance to a cultural template not of their making."

"I can recommend this film with the proviso that you don't have to accept it at face value," writes Andrew Sarris in the New York Observer. "For myself, I found its frankness entrancing. There is something eerie about all the whining and wailing. It is as if we had suppressed all memories of our own outbreaks of self-pity, and Must Read forces us to remember."

For Filmmaker, Nick Dawson talks with Dews "about the discovery of this dark period of his family history, how he approached making such a personal film, and his love of the original 'Miracle on 34th Street.'"

Opens in New York tomorrow (Friday, February 20), Los Angeles a week later and premieres tomorrow online for everyone in between and beyond.

Updates, 2/20: "Though it's a curiosity in its own right, the documentary 'Must Read After My Death' raises unsettling questions about the erosion of the private sphere," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "More and more, the expectation of privacy is being replaced by a demand for exploitation, self-generated and not. That's why, while I admire how Mr Dews has constructed his movie on a formal level, I can't help but wonder how his grandmother would feel if she knew her family's trauma has been repackaged for our queasy consumption."

"Here is a cry from the grave," writes Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times.

"The relentless negativity in 'Must Read After My Death' can become overwhelming at times, but it's undeniably mesmerizing," writes Noel Murray at the AV Club.

"Documentary memoirs are getting out of hand," concedes Leah Churner in Reverse Shot, but: "First-time filmmaker Morgan Dews bucks the narcissistic impulse in 'Must Read After My Death,' and the result is a movie I'll see again."

Updates, 2/21: "'Must Read After My Death' boils Allis's story down to less than 80 minutes, and into something that's both entirely specific - one idiosyncratic Connecticut family trying to keep up appearances despite intense dysfunction - and far more universal," writes Andrew O'Hehir in Salon. "It's also a magical, heartbreaking resurrection of the dead, who report that their efforts to solve the big questions of life and love didn't go so well, either."

Scott Marks: "Since this is 8mm bumped up to digital video, we're not talking Sirk and Metty, so you have my permission to this one time to skip the theatre and watch a new release in your home."

[Photo: "Must Read After My Death," Gigantic Releasing, 2007]

Tags: Morgan Dews, Must Read After My Death