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Dick Johnson Is Dead Movie Review

Dick Johnson Is Dead is a 2020 documentary film directed by Kirsten Johnson. It’s a very unethical movie.

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“I’ve always wanted to be in the movies“

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As her father nears the end of his life, filmmaker Kirsten Johnson stages his death in inventive and comical ways to help them both face the inevitable. First and foremost, as the two recreate the various deaths and we get to see some even more fantastical, cinematic and trippy imagery, the movie’s originality becomes difficult to deny. It’s quite authentic and unlike any other documentary out there while still being a documentary and not too much of a hybrid as many documentaries these days are.

My main issue here is that I simply do not agree with Kirsten Johnson on moral grounds. I get that different people cope differently with death and impending death, but still there are some lines that shouldn’t be crossed and the director filming her father before his death just felt wrong to me.

Dick Johnson Is Dead is for those people who do cope in different ways with the darkest things in life and it should appeal to those optimistic people, but I personally do not find death a laughing matter, and this isn’t the way I would deal with somebody close to me dying.

The imagination on display is undeniable, though again the gross, disturbing parts felt too inappropriate and horrendous, but the happier sequences were sweet and charming. The visuals and score are wonderful and the movie’s fantastical imagery fitted the narrative so well.

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And the man in question is awesome. He is so cheerful and thus the movie is quite inspirational, but unfortunately it did seem to me like she was using him for her movie, which is a feeling that I just could not shake. I wish I could, but I remain in my firm thought that this wasn’t ethical, no matter how technically accomplished and intriguing it was.