Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
Fascinated by the human brain and its capacity for ruthlessness, psychiatrist Dr. Dorothy Otnow Lewis has spent her life investigating the interior lives of violent people. With each case, she came closer to developing a unified field theory of what makes a killer. Along the way - steering away from the conventional wisdom of her colleagues - she explored the world of multiple personality disorder.
Alex Gibney's documentary on Dr. Dorothy Otnow Lewis is a genuinely compelling portrait of an iconoclastic psychiatrist whose career-long investigation into the roots of violence — particularly her controversial embrace of dissociative identity disorder as a mitigating factor in death-penalty cases — makes for riveting subject matter. The film's narrative structure is strong, weaving case studies, archival footage, and Lewis's own reflections into a cohesive argument. Novelty is high: the film occupies a rare intersection of true crime, psychiatric theory, legal ethics, and biography, and Lewis herself is such a singular figure that the documentary feels genuinely one-of-a-kind. Cinematography is functional and serviceable for a talking-head documentary, elevated somewhat by stylized reenactments and archival materials but not visually exceptional. The ending, while thematically resonant in its meditation on trauma and culpability, doesn't quite deliver a dramatic or revelatory payoff commensurate with the buildup. Acting is not applicable in the traditional sense, but Lewis's on-screen presence and interview subjects are generally engrossing.