What happens when a doctor, a goat, and an impotent man converge in small town Kansas in 1917? Something you probably wouldn’t believe if it wasn’t told to you in a documentary or by some other authoritative source, because the story is wild, weird, and very nuts.
What happened was that doctor John Romulus Brinkley developed a goat-to-human testicular transplant that cured the impotent man, launching him to fame and fortune while the rest of America sunk deep into the Great Depression. A flourishing practice, an innovative radio station, the ire of the medical establishment, and even a political campaign ensued, taking Brinkley on a journey so unexpected that it’s as seductive today as it was for his admiring contemporaries.
Overcoming Footage Woes
The fight that all documentaries have is with existing footage. You either have it or you don’t, and when looking back at a story from nearly 100 years prior, you probably won’t have enough to fill even a short documentary like Nuts!. Director Penny Lane likely knew this going in, and the approach she takes to combat the shortage is as multifaceted as the story she’s telling.
Lane has photos and some brief voice and video recordings of Brinkley and his family, but she mainly relies on animation and voice-over to bring the story to life. Much of Brinkley’s past is pulled from a biography titled “The Life of a Man”, going so far as to lift a storybook style for the narration and to give different sections of the film chapter titles in reference to its main source. These consistent references to the book gives the voice-over a more natural reason to be there and makes the narrator a sort of character within the story.
The animation itself is exquisitely hand-drawn, with different animators working on different chapters. Some sequences are photorealistic while others are only sketches of a scene. This variety, along with sprinkles of talking head interviews and inserts of the archival pieces, keeps the film from falling into the dreaded visual monotony that plagues so many documentaries. By matching this with the stylish voice-over, the documentary largely overcomes its built-in hurdle and is as unassumingly entertaining as watching someone relishing a favorite anecdote.
Pairing Story With Teller
The relish that you pick up on when watching Nuts! doesn’t come from nowhere. Most documentarians focus on topics that pop out to them, and when they let that enthusiasm shine through, it’s as infectious as watching someone laugh. Lane and writer Thom Stylinski embrace the oddities in this story wholeheartedly, and let that inform the film’s tone. This gives them the leverage to pull off injections of humor, like showing proper 1930s gentlemen squirming while talking about testicles.
No, this isn’t a documentary you take your parents to (unless you have an open relationship with your parents). Characters curse, goats make love, and there’s a pretty frank description of erectile dysfunction. It’s not all played for laughs, though. Some of it’s there to punctuate the drama, which ends up being as crucial to the film’s success as its spry humor.
These moments give the film a very modern feel, making it clear that this is a documentary looking back at its subject instead of simply telling a story. There’s an extra layer of engagement there, an admission of a point of view that colors everything you’re being told.
From what the audience learns about Brinkley, I doubt he would mind his story being told this way. He was a charismatic guy, someone who could build an empire off transplanting some testicles. By presenting his story this way, Nuts! is as much a representation of Brinkley as it is a film about him.
Deliberate Purpose
Everything that’s been discussed in this review is wonderful on its own, but Lane uses it all to convey something much larger than the story of one man. Hints are dropped throughout the film, making for moments that may subtly rankle you, but you likely won’t understand where it’s all headed until the bitter end. I admit that I jotted some of these moments down as criticisms, and once the film finished, I had to mark out whole sections of my notes. Lane and company played me like a fiddle, and the end packs precisely the wallop they intended.
Looking back, it’s no surprise that I didn’t see Lane’s point coming. Nearly every aspect of the film is constructed to pull this off, preying on the way audiences think about documentaries and the expectations they bring in. It’s like when a horror movie builds to a crescendo only to have nothing happen. The moment works because both the audience and the filmmakers know horror beats and have an unspoken agreement that this playful subversion is allowed.
Documentaries traditionally reject this interplay with a vengeance. To do so means admitting that documentaries are constructed like any other film, utilizing their writers, editors, and other staff to mold a story and message that the audience shouldn’t automatically take at face value. Some may criticize this as going against the ‘truth’ that documentaries are supposed to present, but by playing with the usual beats to trick her audience, Lane proves how pervasive these manipulations are.
Conclusion
The larger ideas underlying Nuts! are certainly thought-provoking enough to sustain multiple viewings, and there’s lessons to be learned from how it was all constructed. However, the film is also downright fun. Pulling off entertainment and ideas at the same time is really the pinnacle of filmmaking, and Lane balances these things wonderfully. So whether you’re wanting a film you can laugh at in the moment or argue about later, Nuts! provides it all.
Do you think the truth of situations are loose enough to play with? Do you think this should be done in documentaries? Let us know in the comments!
Nuts! is out on July 8 in select cities across the U.S. For screening dates, see the film’s website here.
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